Write answers to both essay questions. Write as many double-spaced pages as it takes you to answer the questions sufficiently.
Essay Question 1: Write a review of the film “McLuhan’s Wake” < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6cXeNDCy-k
> in which you discuss how Marshall McLuhan’s tetrad of the laws of media can help us think more ethically about technology. In particular, use the tetrad of McLuhan to compare the industrial corporation with a genuinely digital, distributist business (Rushkoff, Chapter 5, pages 237-238), such as the Fairphone: < https://youtu.be/7C-VTPJxWlw
>. Contrast Douglas Rushkoff’s “digital distributism” with the three other types of economic operating systems (Douglas Rushkoff, Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus, Chapter 5, pages 225, 233), explaining how “digital distributism” is not leftism, but rather an emphasis on subsidiarity (Rushkoff, Chapter 5, pages 228-232, esp. 231)
Essay Question 2: Write an essay on how moral theory determines whether or not euthanasia is ethical. Can a doctor omit to give antibiotics to a disabled child and plead that he foresaw the death but did not intend it? Give two examples — one in which euthanasia is the motive, and one in which it is not — and use the Principle of Double Effect (“PDE”) to evaluate the morality of the doctor’s actions in each example: see the PDF #1 (on Moodle) of David Oderberg, Applied Ethics, page 80; note: his discussion of this question begins on page 74, and “PDE” is mentioned on page 76.
For additional information on “PDE”, see also the PDF #2 at this link: <https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B7SKlRTfkUieSXFTdDNnY0wybWs/edit>.
