Goal 12 – Introduction to Ethics [PHIL 308] {Honors Course}

Introduction to Ethics is an Honors course I took to satisfy the twelfth general education goal all Longwood students must fulfill before graduation. I chose to reflect on my paper “An Argument Against Moral Vegetarianism” because of the effort I spent coming up with a way to support my claims.

My paper, “An Argument Against Moral Vegetarianism,” was the first paper I wrote for my Intro to Ethics class. Very graciously, my professor, Dr. Eric Moore, agreed to review rough drafts of our papers before we submitted them to give us suggestions for improvement. Applying the principles of ethics we had been discussing in class in order to write this paper was something with which I experienced much difficulty. I was enormously proud of my first draft of my paper, but much to my chagrin, Dr. Moore was not. He poked holes in my most important arguments for my claims, and I felt that he had basically negated my entire paper. He even had me questioning whether I needed to start practicing moral vegetarianism, which I thought I was totally against! I was back to square one. Well, I had a starting point, so maybe square one and a half.

After emailing back and forth with him, I was guided to a more solid (albeit still rather…interesting) way to support my argument against moral vegetarianism. I realized that ethics gives us so many unique ways to look at things that anyone could come up with a decently solid argument for and against almost any moral issue he or she could fathom. It made me look at a lot of the ways I view moral issues very differently; everyone’s own judgement will lead her to her own moral conclusions. One of my favorite things I got out of Dr. Moore’s class, though, was reassurance that I personally can justify eating all the meat I can stomach!

Below you will first see a copy of the original rough draft of my paper followed by the final copy so you can compare and see the improvements for yourself.