Please make sure to answer all four parts of the question.

Question:  In the opinion for the 1997 Supreme Court case Vacco v. Quill (ATTACHED), Chief Justice Rehnquist, writing for the Court, rejected the plaintiffs’ and the Court of Appeals’s equal protection argument by relying on two anti-consequentialist principles — the Doctrine of Doing and Allowing (DDA)(ATTACHED) and the Doctrine of Double Effect (DDE)(ATTACHED).  In her article “Physician-Assisted Suicide: Two Moral Arguments” (ATTACHED), Judith Jarvis Thomson criticizes the Court’s arguments based on these two principles.  Answer the following questions:
(a)            What is the equal protection argument for allowing assisted suicide?
(b)            Chose one of the two anti-consequentialist principles (not both!!).  How, according to the Court, can this principle be used to reject the equal protection argument you summarized in (a)?
(c)            What is Thomson’s argument against the Court’s argument that you outlined in (b)?
(d)            Remember that in his two articles, Warren Quinn sought to come up with and justify new and improved versions of the two anti-consequentialist principles.  Sticking to the particular anti-consequentialist principle you chose in (b), do you think that Quinn’s improved version of the principle can be used to deflect Thomson’s argument against it?  Why or why not?  Explain.

Remember to stick to only one and the same anti-consequentialist principle in answering all parts of this question.  Also, you should be able to do (a)-(c) pretty quickly.  Do not spend a lot of space and time answering these parts of the question.  You will be evaluated mostly for your answer to (d), which is the most substantive and difficult part of this question.  Also, you can just answer (a)-(d) in order.  You do not have to try to write one coherent essay that weaves together your answers to the four parts.  But remember to try your best to write clear and easy-to-follow answers.
You can write up to 1500 words (including footnotes).  I very much doubt that you would need more than 300-400 words in answering (a)-(c).  You should use the rest of your word limit in answering (d).

Additional Instructions:
1.              Do not waste time and space writing introductory or concluding paragraphs.  Just answer the above question in a clear and organized manner that your reader can easily comprehend and follow.  Remember that any difficulty in understanding your reasoning will mean difficulty in giving you credit.
2.              I am asking you to provide your own arguments in (d).  You should not think that there is a uniquely right answer for this question, and that I am trying to see whether you get that right answer.  Obviously, you could say many things that are clearly wrong.  But there also are a few different plausible things that you can say in response to the question, and I am assessing you on the quality and clarity of the arguments that you give to back up your responses, rather than on the specific responses you give.  In many cases, a slightly wrong answer that is backed up by robust arguments is much better than a perfectly right answer that has poor arguments backing it.  Good answers would also try to anticipate objections to your conclusions and arguments, and try to answer such objections.  Raising a difficult objection, and stating that you cannot come up with a good response to it is better than ignoring an obvious and difficult objection to your position.  When in doubt, be honest.  You also should not think that it is possible to write a satisfactory assignment by merely repeating what I said in my lectures.  The question I am asking you in (d) is a question that I did not explicitly address or answer in my lectures.
3.              Although I refer above to some specific items among the assigned readings for this course, you should not automatically think that those are the only relevant readings in doing this assignment.  A good understanding of the material in other assigned readings in general is likely to enhance your responses greatly.
4.              Make sure you support your conclusions with arguments and appropriate textual evidence.  When you quote, you should not assume that the reader’s understanding of the quotation you use automatically matches your own.  You need to explain what you take the quote to say.  I will be evaluating you partly based on your understanding of the text.
5.              You should provide citations for any direct quotations, paraphrases, and any ideas you borrow from others.  You can cite assigned articles and legal opinions with simple parentheticals attached to the ends of your relevant sentences or quotes — e.g. “(Quinn, p. 183)”.  You should provide footnote citations if you are borrowing from something I said in class or one of your classmates.  If against my very strong advice below, you consult outside material, then you should provide a full citation in a footnote.  ***I cannot emphasize this enough:  You should take scrupulous care so that you do not run any risk of plagiarism.  According to the College of Humanities’ Plagiarism Resources, “[p]lagiarism is a form of cheating or fraud; it occurs when a student misrepresents the work of another as his or her own.  Plagiarism may consist of using the ideas, sentences, paragraphs, or the whole text of another without appropriate acknowledgment, but it also includes employing or allowing another person to write or substantially alter work that a student then submits as his or her own.”  Please be advised that formal disciplinary action will be taken if you are suspected of plagiarizing.  Your grade will be withheld if you are suspected of plagiarism.  You will be asked to meet with me.  And if the suspicion persists after our meeting, I will have to file a report with the associate dean’s office.  If you have questions about plagiarism, do not hesitate to contact me.
6.              I very strongly recommend that you do not use or consult works other than the assigned readings for this course.  The question is designed so that you have plenty of material to work with just by using the assigned readings.  This assignment is intended to make you think on your own by engaging with Rehnquist, Thomson, and Quinn’s written words.  Moreover, my experience with grading is such that students are often more confused and led astray rather than helped by consulting outside sources.  By “outside sources”, I include internet sources.  Many of internet sources are confused and unreliable.  Furthermore, many outside sources use certain terminology that are often used in debates of this sort that we did not use.  Given this fact, you are more likely to be misled and to make life more difficult for yourself by relying on outside sources.
8.              Your writing style should be simple and plain, aimed mainly at clarity of expression and ease of comprehension.  I will not be evaluating you on the beauty of your writing style, the nobility of the emotions you express, or even your erudition (other than your familiarity with the class material).  Make sure that you do a spell check, and that your grammar is sound.  We will not be (intentionally!) penalizing you for grammar or spelling mistakes.  But if such mistakes result in some difficulty of comprehension, we will penalize you.
9.              Please double-space your assignment.  (Block quotes should be single-spaced.)  Use one-inch margins on all sides, and please use Times Roman 12-point font.  Also, insert page numbers.  We will penalize you for going over the length limit.  You also should not feel compelled to write up to the length limit just to show us that you have worked hard.  Unnecessary and/or repetitive material that students sometimes add to their written assignments almost always weakens their assignments

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use only materials from the course (the readings from the textbook and lecture notes), you can just use a generic footnote the first time you quote from or paraphrase Aquinas or Dimock that gives the full details of the book—all references are to….–, and then after that you can just say Aquinas page number or Dimock page number in the text.

Question

St. Thomas Aquinas developed a theory of human law that includes the following 10 requirements or elements. In order to be a law, a directive must be:

1.      a directive of reason

2.      aimed at the common good

3.      promulgated by a lawmaking authority

4.      pertaining to a complete community

5.      leading people to or restraining them from certain actions

6.      general

7.      having coercive power

8.      intended to be obeyed

9.      just (in conformity with justice)

10.  imposing a moral obligation of obedience.

Some of these conditions are normative or evaluative, while others are formal or non-evaluative. Explain what each one means, and whether it is normative or non-normative (formal). Then explain why Aquinas thinks that a genuine or valid law is one that meets all of these conditions; it is unconditionally good, and obedience to it is unconditionally good, whereas a ‘law’ which meets the formal conditions but fails to meet one or more of the evaluative conditions “has something of the nature of law” about it, but it is not unconditionally law and obedience to it is not unconditionally but only relatively good.