Steps to moral reasoning and ethical conclusion

Post an original response (about 200 words) to the Discussion Area.

All written assignments and responses should follow APA rules for attributing sources. Responses and at least one of the replies should contain a reference in correct APA format.

For your assignment, use the information on critical thinking, arguments, and the steps of moral reasoning from the chapter section “Critical Thinking and Moral Reasoning” to construct an argument that has one of the following as the ethical conclusions:

The Food Stamp program is a moral and just form of redistribution of taxed income, orThe Food Stamp program is an immoral and unjust form of redistribution of taxed income.

The goal of this assignment is for you to use the steps of moral reasoning to reduce your opinion (on the Food Stamp program) to a statement (either [1] or [2] above). This statement should be supported by a set of premises or morally reasoned sentences developed as you followed the Steps to Moral Reasoning. Your moral reasoning steps should explain or show how the conclusion is ethically correct.

Be sure to include a discussion of your thoughts on the actual steps of moral reasoning (from the text) that you use. Explain how they support your opinion on either premise 1 or 2.

This is an important exercise because moral reasoning should be the foundation upon which you build your answers to future assignments.

You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.

Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.

Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.

The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.