Jay Smolens

Eda Ozyesilpinar

English 1030-41

7 October 2015

Project 4 Outline

I.                 Introduction

A.    Hook: State the issue outright to produce shock in the audience. (Issue is something along the lines of rampant abundance of immorality and hypocritical preaching of tolerance).

B.    State Moral Relativism as the cause and define it/give a background. Also state why it is significant.

C.    Give position on the argument. State that there is in fact an objective moral truth that is universal to all, and moral relativism is an incorrect philosophy.

II.               Method Section

A.    State what you researched

1.     Moral Relativism (philosophy of it)

2.     Moral Relativism (arguments for and against it)

B.    State how you went about researching it

III.             Literature Review

A.    Objectively talk about all arguments for the opposition,

B.    Objectively talk about all arguments in support of your own argument

IV.            Transition. This is where you remind your audience of your initial argument and start moving towards your discussion.

V.              Discussion

A.    Support your argument using your own logic and reasoning.

B.    Move from support that moral relativism is an incorrect ideology to your much bolder claim that there is a universal objective moral law and support that.

C.    Discuss the implications this has in society today.

VI.            Conclusion

A.    Summarize your discussion session and the overall conversation presented in the literature review section.

B.    Restate your thesis argument.

Introduction/Background to Research Proposal (I molded them into one paragraph):

Moral Relativism is the philosophical ideology that there is no objective moral truth (Moral Relativism). Essentially this means that there are different truths for every person, culture, situation, etc. There is not a single thing that is true in every single conceivable circumstance (Stefanik). If you delve deeper into its philosophical background, one huge root or moral relativism is a form of epistemological thought called global skepticism. Without going into too much detail, this is basically a line of reasoning that results in us saying that we cannot know anything for certain. If we can’t know anything (not one single truth), then it stands to reason that there isn’t a universal objective truth. Moral Relativism also stems from strict ethics of belief. That is another subcategory of philosophy. In short, it states that it is wrong to believe anything without sufficient justification. Now, if you can’t know anything for sure, you can’t have sufficient justification for belief, and you cannot believe that there is a universal moral law (Timmons, Shoemaker). Now this ideology is becoming more and more popular in today’s society (Harman). This begs the question: “why has moral relativism become so popular in recent years? Why is it becoming more and more prevalent?” It is my opinion that it is growing because of its convenience in a society where people preach tolerance of just about everything, and that there is in fact a universal objective moral law. People use it to justify anything as benign as casual sex, to something as malevolent as theft or even murder.