Week 15 — Split It Fairly? Building the Case in a Garden's Grant Dispute — Traditional alternative (no AI)

Instructors: publish this instead of the adaptive version if you prefer, and unpublish or delete the adaptive one.

Assignment 14 of the term — the last one: take apart a moral argument about splitting a shared grant, separate its value premise from its factual premises, argue both sides from each framework, steelman the side you reject, choose the test that fits each claim, and explain the dispute to someone new.

This week you learned to separate a value premise from a factual premise, to tell a value disagreement from a factual one, to use the consequence-based, duty-based, and character-based frameworks as tools, and to steelman the other side before replying. In this assignment you work four short problems on one illustrative message, interpret each one, choose the test that fits a claim from everything the course has taught, and explain the dispute to someone new. This week's lecture tutorial, quiz, discussion, and Argument Workshop practise the same ideas from other angles. This is the last assignment of the course. The cumulative final in Week 16 draws on every week, and its study guide, practice exam, and exam-prep tutorial are posted with it; the choose-the-test move in Problem 4 is the same move the final asks for, so use your work here when you review.

The task

Your text is an illustrative message from one member of a neighborhood community garden to the five other members, with no real garden, person, or grant-maker behind it: "Our garden's 480-dollar grant should be split by hours volunteered, not equally. The sign-in sheet shows the six of us worked 18, 12, 12, 6, 6, and 6 hours this season. People who did more of the work deserve more of the money. Last season, when we split the grant equally, fewer people signed in to volunteer, so equal shares make people lazy. Splitting equally would reward people who barely showed up." Another member replies in one line: "You only want to keep the money for yourself."

Work these four problems, showing your arithmetic and quoting the sentences you use:

1. The garden's 480-dollar grant is shared by 6 members. If it is split equally, how many dollars does each member receive?
2. The sign-in sheet shows 18, 12, 12, 6, 6, and 6 hours. If the 480-dollar grant is split by hours volunteered, how many dollars does the member who logged 18 hours receive?
3. How many dollars more does the member who logged 18 hours receive under the split by hours than under the equal split?
4. How many dollars less does each member who logged 6 hours receive under the split by hours than under the equal split?

Beside each figure, add one brief interpretation:

• Problem 1: put the first member's argument in standard form, with each premise on its own numbered line and the conclusion after "So,"; supply the unstated value premise if the argument needs one and mark it (supplied); and label each premise value or factual.
• Problem 2: say which question in the dispute is a value question and which is a factual question, name the record that could settle the factual one, and say what the arithmetic decides and what it does not decide.
• Problem 3: give one reason for the split by hours and one reason for the equal split from each of the three frameworks (consequence-based, duty-based, and character-based), name one framework's standard objection, and say in one sentence why no framework settles the dispute by itself.
• Problem 4: name what is wrong with the one-line reply as an answer to the argument, write a steelman of the equal-split side in terms its holders would accept, and reply to it; choose the test from the course synthesis that fits the claim "equal shares make people lazy" and explain why one plausible alternative test fits it less well; name where your own position is weakest; and then write the message to the new member described below.

Explain it to a non-expert

A new member joins the garden and asks, "Which split is fair? Can't the numbers tell us?" Write a 3–5 sentence message that explains in everyday words what each split gives the member with the most hours and the members with the fewest, which part of the dispute is about values and which part is about a fact, and one limit: the sign-in sheet records only the hours people signed in for, so it may miss work done without signing in. Explain any technical term in everyday words. More than one good message is possible.

For a different, ungraded example, imagine a four-person band arguing about how to split its pay for a show. Model message: "If the band splits the pay evenly, everyone gets the same; if it splits by songs each person wrote, the main songwriter gets more. The math only tells us what each rule gives, not which rule is fair; that part is a question about what the band values, like teamwork or credit for writing. Whether the songwriter really wrote most of the songs is a fact the band can check. One limit: counting songs ignores who spent the most hours rehearsing."

Use that pattern for the new member, with your own wording and evidence.

Show your arithmetic, write each term out in full, and quote the sentences you use. A reader should be able to reproduce every number you report, and find every quoted sentence in the garden message, without guessing which values, steps, or sentences you used.

Deliverables

Submit a single report containing:

• the four figures, each with the arithmetic shown and the brief interpretation the task names for that problem;
• your message to the new member, reporting what each split gives the member with the most hours and the members with the fewest, separating the value part of the dispute from the factual part, and naming one limit; and
• a one-line restatement of the values you used (the grant, the number of members, and the hours on the sign-in sheet), so your figures are reproducible.

Keep it to roughly one page.

Choose how you show it. Present your report as written text, or as a recorded audio or video explanation of about three minutes with a transcript, or as a labelled argument map that sets the split-by-hours argument beside the equal-split argument and marks each value premise and factual premise, with a short note that says your judgment in words. Every form is graded by the same scoring criteria. Submit in any accessible file type or as a link; a recorded response may be submitted as audio or video with a transcript, or as text.

How you'll be graded

The full analytic rubric is attached to this assignment in Canvas.

Academic integrity and AI use

This version is designed to be completed without AI: do the computations, the interpretations, and the writing yourself, without a chatbot or other AI tool. Quote the garden message only as it is printed here, word for word. Submitting AI-generated work as your own, or copying another student's work, is an integrity violation under the course policy.

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