Write a 4-5 page paper on one of the following topics.  The paper is due in class Tuesday, December 2.  Please consult the Writing Guidelines for suggestions about how to prepare for and write your paper.

1. Kant and the Good Will.  Kant famously claims that the only thing good without qualification is the good will (Groundwork 393).  What kind of value is he ascribing to the good will?  What does he mean by a good will?  Who does Kant think counts as displying a good will and why?  Here it might be helpful to discuss at least some of Kant's examples.  Some readers view his account of moral motivation as overly rationalistic.  Why?  How plausible do you find his analysis of the good will as an account of moral motivation or virtue?

2. Kant and the Categorical Imperative.  Kant believes that moral requirements express categorical imperatives.  What does he mean?  How does he get from this claim to the Universality Formula of the Categorical Imperative, which requires acting only on maxims that one can consistently will to be a universal law (421)?  How should we understand the required universality?  How does this test compare with the Golden Rule or the familiar question "What if everyone did that?"?  Is it a plausible test?  Does it deliver sensible moral verdicts?

3. Kant and Rawls.  In A Theory of Justice John Rawls defends two principles of justice to assess the basic structure of society by appeal to a hypothetical social contract in which parties to the contract select principles from behind a veil of ignorance that conceals their identities and attributes.  Describe Rawls's principles and social contract argument.  Why should anyone care about the results of such a hypothetical contract?  In what way is his position Kantian?  In what way, if any, does the Kantian reading of Rawls's project help us better understand the Universality Formula of the Categorical Imperative?