Open University

Included here are all the essays I have written as part of my Open University studies. I've put them here because someone may find them interesting, or even useful, or I may refer to them elsewhere.

Note that almost all these essays refer to OU course materials which you're unlikely to be able to access unless you're an OU student on the same course. However, there's only a few - mostly those from "Introduction to the Humanities" - where having access to the course material is vital to understanding the argument.

Like most of this site, these essays are released under a Creative Commons licence, which essentially means you can copy them and redistribute them provided I am credited as the author. It does not mean you can plagiarise me.

Essays are grouped by course and ordered chronologically.

Introduction to the Humanities

In what ways does the writer's use of language convey the different moods she describes?

Analysis of Claude Lorraine's "Landscape with Hagar and the Angel"

Critically evaluate the relationship between form and function in three aspects of the design and construction of the Colosseum.

Analysis of "Calonne's reform programme"

Discuss the relative importance of the Individual Will and the Will of the State, as illustrated by Rousseau's philosophy, and David's "The Death of Socrates"

The problems of boundaries in the study of science and religion

Constructions of characters at odds with society

To what extent where the sixties "a period of exceptional cultural and social change"?

Philosophy and the Human Situation

Give a clear account of Isaiah Berlin's "two concepts of liberty"

What are Mill's four main arguments in defence of freedom of speech?

Do Scruton's arguments show that fox-hunting is always morally justifiable?

Ought we particularly to respect nature?

If evolutionary psychology is correct, then the apparently selfless acts most of us occasionally perform are not genuinely selfless.

Outline the single strongest objection to functionalism, and determine whether this objection is sufficient to cancel out functionalism's advantages

Is there good reason to believe in an intelligence who has designed the universe?

World Religions

The Jewish prayer, the Shema, includes the words "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. Take to heart these instructions with which I charge you this day". What have the Jews understood by "taking to heart" the instructions contained in the Torah and how have they put this into practice in everyday life?

The personality of Muhammad, as it is presented in the Koran and the earliest stratum of tradition, is that of an ordinary human being charged with a special mission from God. Explain the basis for this judgement and discuss the extent to which it accurately reflects the beliefs of Muslims down to the present day.

Does the amount of attention paid to devatas give a misleading impression of the importance of these 'minor dieties'?

To what extent can meditation be described as central to Buddhist practice?

Discuss the view that sacred space is frequently organised from the 'outside in' to control access to the different areas it encompasses.

Discuss the responses to the question of whether women are capable of achieving the same spiritual standing as men.

Compare and contrast the ways in which religions relate their moral teachings to their understandings of the problem of evil.

Political Philosophy - Machiavelli to Mill

To what extent are political leaders bound by a morality that is distinct from conventional morality, according to Machiavelli? Is Machiavelli correct on that score?

Do the subjects in Hobbes's commonwealth retain their liberty?

"The promises and bargains for truck & c. between the two men in the desert island ... are binding to them, though they are perfectly in a state of nature, in reference to one another". Why does Locke think this? Is he right?

"Only by obeying the general will are we truly free". Do you agree?

To what extent is Marx right in thinking that political emancipation falls short of human emancipation?

How, according to Mill, could the state of marriage be improved? Are his grounds good ones?

"We are better off living under the rule of law than outside it" Does this imply that we are obliged to obey the law?

Philosophy of the Mind

How, according to Matthews, does Descartes's new concept of mind differ from that of his Aristotelian predecessors? Explain any potential problems that Cartesianism gives rise to.

In what sense, if any, is an emotion a passion?

What, if anything, do Putnam's Twin Earth thought experiments demonstrate about meaning?

Creativity, and Stevenson's Twelve Conceptions of Imagination.

What is the knowledge argument? Is it successful?

Are Zombies Conceivable?

Virtue Ethics

On the virtue of 'generosity'

Critically compare a deontological and a virtue ethics approach to the following dilemma

Apply the virtue ethical approach to the following claim: It is always wrong to steal.

(Project Plan) - Applying a Virtue Ethics approach to the question: Was Tony Blair right to take Britain into war with Iraq?

Applying a Virtue Ethics approach to the question: Was Tony Blair right to take Britain into war with Iraq?

Postgraduate Foundation Module

What is it to be a person?

Were you once a foetus?

In what ways, if any, is taxation like forced labour? What is the upshot of your answer for an account of distributive justice?

What is Dennett's view of the function of folk psychology? Is it a satisfactory alternative to the theory-theory?

Is punishment ever justified?

Postgraduate Course Module

Why is there any question over methodological individualism in the social sciences?

"All concern with equality in distributive justice is either a misidentified concern with something else or an unreasonable concern with an empty shibboleth." Do you agree?

Are the communitarians right in their criticism of the liberal conception of a person?

Discuss whether nationalism poses a problem for liberalism