Write an essay of 2-3 pages (c. 600-900 words) in which present and evaluate a dispute between two points of view that may be found in the current module. To choose a topic you will need to identify:

The people you associate with the two sides of the issue should both come from the current module. The issue itself does not need to arise explicitly in what you have read; and, in particular, the arguments on each side that you consider don’t need to appear in the text (though they may). However, you should cite passages in the text that support your view that someone might hold a given position; that is, you should be able to say, “X says such-and-such, so we might expect him or her to also argue so-and-so.” (Of course, it can be clear that you are able to say that sort of thing even though you do not actually say it in so many words.)

The issue you consider may be a major point of difference between people. There are any number of major issues that divide a legalist like Han Fei Tzu from Confucius or Mencius, and you will see equally large difference between the Taoists and both the Legalists and Confucians. But the issue may be a more subtle difference, such as the apparent disagreement between Confucius and Mencius over whether human nature is something worth discussing. The two sides to the issue may appear in different days’ readings, but they could appear within a single selection—as in the case of Mencius and Master Gao in the Mencius or the prefect Kuang Zhong and the governor Zhou Chen in Fifteen Strings of Cash. And the people associated with the issue need not have names; for example, one might be a voice speaking in one of the poems from the Book of Songs.

Your evaluation of the dispute should be an assessment of the relative strength of the two sides of the argument from your own point of view. Part of that might be the consideration of replies one side could make to the arguments of the other (even if there is no textual evidence to suggest that such replies would actually be made). And, whatever form it takes, your evaluation should be a substantial part of the paper, roughly equal to your presentation of one of the two sides (and thus roughly between a quarter and a third of the whole).

There are many ways in which an essay like this might be organized, but one straightforward approach would be to begin with a brief description of the issue, then present each of the two sides in turn, and conclude with your evaluation of their relative strength. The most likely variation on this would be to present the dispute as a longer series of exchanges (e.g., an argument, an objection to it, a reply to the objection, and a response to the reply). If you employ this second sort of organization, you will need to present each step at great enough length to make it clear, and it will be hard to do that in this short a paper if you divide the presentation of the argument into more than three such exchanges of assertion and response.

Fri. 12/4 is a lecture day, so I won’t meet you in class. I encourage you to turn in the paper electronically as an e-mail attachment, but I will also accept hard copy (which you can give to me at the lecture, drop off at my office, Center 200H, or leave in my box in Center 207). If you want a specific time for the deadline, you can count it as the end of the day—i.e., by midnight.