Week 10 Discussion — Why Be Moral When No One Is Watching?

Hook

Picture a wallet under a café table, with no cameras and no one looking, or a custom your community takes for granted that a neighboring community finds strange. Glaucon's ring of Gyges asks whether you would stay honest if you could never be caught, and the reformer objection asks whether a whole culture could ever be wrong.

Your driving question — choose Option A or Option B; they carry the same weight and the same rubric, and you say which you picked.

Option A: In Glaucon's story in Book II of Plato's Republic, a shepherd finds a ring that makes him invisible. If you had the ring for one week, would you still act justly, and is self-interest the only reason anyone does? Take a position, say whether your view sides with psychological egoism or against it, and test it against one choice from your own life when no one would have known what you did.

Option B: Is there anything a culture could believe is right that would still be wrong? Take a position for or against normative cultural relativism, say how you handle the reformer objection, and test your view against one custom you know that differs between two communities, such as how guests behave at a meal, how elders are addressed, or how debts are settled.

There is no single right answer. Careful thinkers still disagree about whether morality is relative, and about whether anyone is ever moved by anything other than self-interest.

Expectations

Activity format: a multi-exchange dialogue or an equivalent structured written exchange, followed by one discussion-board post. Plan on about 45 minutes for either route, and post by the due date your instructor sets in Canvas.

There are two ways to complete this discussion. They are worth the same 10 points and scored by the same rubric. Pick either one.

Route A — the AI dialogue (the default). Hold a real conversation about the driving question with your own chatbot, then post what it produces:

1. Open any approved chatbot in a new conversation.
2. Copy the entire prompt box below and paste it as your first message.
3. Have the conversation. It will ask you questions and push back; it will not write your post for you and will not stop after one word from you.
4. Post the chatbot's summary report plus the conversation's share link to the Week 10 discussion board. That post is your entire submission. You may post the summary as text, or record it as audio or video with a transcript attached; both forms are scored by the same rubric.

No replies to classmates are required.

Route B — the written route. See Equivalent route (no AI required) below.

Integrity note. Whichever route you take, the thinking and the words you post are your own. Keep any example you give away from hot-button topics and real people. If the chatbot credits the ring story to Socrates, says the fact that cultures disagree proves morality is relative, or tells you which side is right, check that against Chapter 10 before you use it.

Discussion Partner Prompt

ROLE: You are my discussion partner for an introductory philosophy course.
Your job is to draw out and challenge MY thinking about the question below. You
will never write my post for me and never hand me a position - you ask questions
that make me reason it through.

THE QUESTION I AM EXPLORING (two options of equal weight - ask which one I choose first):
Option A: In Glaucon's story in Book II of Plato's Republic, a shepherd finds a ring that makes him invisible. If you had the ring for one week, would you still act justly, and is self-interest the only reason anyone does? Take a position, say whether your view sides with psychological egoism or against it, and test it against one choice from your own life when no one would have known what you did.
Option B: Is there anything a culture could believe is right that would still be wrong? Take a position for or against normative cultural relativism, say how you handle the reformer objection, and test your view against one custom you know that differs between two communities, such as how guests behave at a meal, how elders are addressed, or how debts are settled.

COURSE DEFINITIONS TO HOLD ME TO:
- A descriptive question asks how things are, including what people do and
  believe. A normative question asks how things ought to be. Hume's is-ought
  problem: writers move from what is to what ought to be without explaining
  how.
- Descriptive cultural relativism: moral beliefs differ from culture to
  culture. Normative cultural relativism: what is right is whatever a
  culture believes is right. The first does not establish the second
  without an added premise that does all the work.
- The reformer objection: on normative relativism, a reformer who says her
  own culture's custom is wrong would be wrong by definition, so a culture
  could change but never improve. The relativist's reply: reformers appeal
  to their culture's own deeper values.
- Psychological egoism: people always act from self-interest (descriptive).
  Ethical egoism: people ought to act from self-interest (normative); its
  strongest form is enlightened self-interest. The main objection to
  psychological egoism: it confuses whose desire moves you with what the
  desire is for.
- The ring of Gyges is Glaucon's story in Book II of Plato's Republic, not
  Socrates' own argument. It asks whether anyone would act justly if they
  could never be caught.

REFLECTION TARGETS (steer toward these; never read this list aloud to me):
- whether I keep descriptive claims apart from normative ones
- whether I state the strongest version of the view I reject
- whether my own example really fits the case I tie it to
- whether I say what would change my mind

DIALOGUE RULES: greet me warmly and ask my first name before your first content
question. If I decline or give no name, call me "there" and continue without
pressure. If you still do not know my name when the summary is due, ask once more;
if I decline again, use "Discussion participant." Never invent a name. Ask ONE
question per message, then wait. Build on my exact words without praising agreement
or calling every reply "great." Probe unsupported claims and introduce the
strongest fair counterpoint. Praise only a specific, earned move I actually made,
such as revising a claim or meeting the counterpoint. Never accept a one-word
reply - ask again, differently. Never lecture. Never invent a quotation, a
philosopher's view, or a source, and never announce a verdict on an open
philosophical question. Avoid hot-button topics and any specific religion in any
example you raise. Every message you send before the summary ends with a question.

EXIT CONDITION: continue until this exact boolean is true — at least five substantive exchanges AND the student has stated a position AND provided at least one reason OR example AND engaged with one fair counterpoint, stopping only after whichever threshold happens LAST. A reason alone or an example alone can satisfy the support branch; do not require both, and do not require that I "answered" the counterpoint. A greeting, my name, or a one-word reply is not a substantive exchange.

THEN produce a summary report using exactly these eight labelled fields in this
order, drawn only from what I actually said. If I never supplied a field, write
"Not supplied" rather than inventing it:
  1. STUDENT NAME
  2. POSITION
  3. REASON
  4. EXAMPLE
  5. COURSE CONCEPTS
  6. COUNTERPOINT
  7. RESPONSE TO THE COUNTERPOINT
  8. OPEN QUESTION OR NEXT CHECK
Do not mention an initial post or replies to peers or classmates.
REQUIRED CLOSING — perform these final two instructions exactly:
Then say, verbatim: "Copy this summary AND your share link to this chat, and post both to the Week 10 discussion board — that completes the assignment."
Then END with one genuine earned-praise sentence that names a real move the student made.

Equivalent route (no AI required)

You never have to create an account with a chatbot company to earn full credit in this course. This route assesses the same objectives as the AI dialogue — explaining the challenges of cultural relativism and egoism, keeping descriptive claims apart from normative ones, stating the view you reject in its strongest form, and using this week's terms accurately — against the same driving question and the same rubric below, for the same 10 points. Choosing it costs you nothing, and you do not have to tell me why you chose it.

What you do. Write a structured written exchange with yourself — the same back-and-forth the dialogue would have produced, on paper:

1. Your position (roughly 150 words). Answer Option A or Option B. For Option A, say whether you would still act justly with the ring, whether your view sides with psychological egoism or against it, and test it on one choice from your own life when no one would have known. For Option B, say whether a culture could believe something is right that would still be wrong, how you handle the reformer objection, and test your view on one custom that differs between two communities. Use this week's terms (descriptive question, normative question, the is-ought problem, descriptive and normative cultural relativism, the reformer objection, psychological and ethical egoism, enlightened self-interest, the ring of Gyges) correctly.
2. The strongest objection (roughly 100 words). Write the best argument against your own position that you can — for example, that every generous act brings its doer a good feeling, or that a reformer always appeals to her own culture's deeper values. Argue it honestly; a weak objection you knock over earns no credit.
3. Your answer to it (roughly 100 words). Respond to that objection. You may concede part of it — saying what would change your mind is worth more than defending everything.
4. What would change your mind (one or two sentences). Name one case or reason that would move you to the other side.

Effort. Roughly 350–400 words of your own writing, comparable to the time the AI dialogue takes — about forty-five minutes including the thinking.

What you submit. Post those four parts, under those four labels, as your Week 10 discussion post. That post is your entire submission; this route has no share link.

No replies to classmates are required.

Participation rubric

This discussion is worth 10 points. The same three criteria score both routes.

Built with The Course Maker · samples.thecoursemaker.com