{"id":1738,"date":"2014-10-01T14:16:40","date_gmt":"2014-10-01T20:16:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/plato-philosophy.org\/?p=1738"},"modified":"2022-02-24T14:26:29","modified_gmt":"2022-02-24T14:26:29","slug":"2014-15-plato-essay-contest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/plato-philosophy.org\/2014-15-plato-essay-contest\/","title":{"rendered":"2014-15 PLATO Essay Contest"},"content":{"rendered":"

2014-15 PLATO ESSAY CONTEST<\/strong><\/p>\n

Announcement: <\/strong>We have our winners for the 2014\/15 essay contest. Congratulations and thanks to all who participated!<\/p>\n

First place<\/span>
\nSyra Mehdi
\nNoble and Greenough School, Dedham, MA
\n“Aristotle’s Theory of Friendship Tested”<\/p>\n

Second place<\/span>
\nJulia Walton
\nAcademy of Notre Dame du Namur
\nVillanova, PA
\n“In the Place Beyond Utility and Pleasure”<\/p>\n

Third Place<\/span>
\nBrendan Bernicker
\nRadnor High School
\nRadnor, PA
\n“So Tyler, Did Jamie Cheat?”<\/p>\n

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The PLATO High School Essay Contest awards will be given to the best philosophical essays written by high school students, in response to the year\u2019s contest essay question.<\/p>\n

Awards<\/strong>:
\nFirst place – $250
\nSecond place – $150
\nThird place – $100<\/p>\n

All winning essays will be published in PLATO\u2019s journal Questions: Philosophy for Young People<\/i>.<\/a><\/p>\n

Contest Details:
\n<\/strong>Eligibility<\/i>:\u00a0 All high school students in the U.S. are eligible to enter.<\/p>\n

Submission Process:
\n<\/i>Entries \u2013 including a one-paragraph bio and a cover sheet with your name, contact information (phone and email), grade and school (none of this information should appear on the essay itself) \u2013 should be emailed to: info@plato-philosophy.org<\/a><\/p>\n

Essay length<\/i>:
\n2,000 words maximum<\/p>\n

Judging<\/i>:
\nThe papers will be read and judged by a panel of high school philosophy teachers and philosophy professors.
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\nDeadline:\u00a0<\/strong>January 31, 2015<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Essay Question:<\/b><\/h2>\n

Is friendship a more important value than honesty? \u00a0To respond to the question, consider this scenario: two high school students,\u00a0Jamie and Tyler, who have been close friends since elementary school, have been brought before the school disciplinary committee because Jamie cheated on a term paper and Tyler had known about it.\u00a0 Jamie lies to the committee, stating emphatically that he did not cheat on the term paper.\u00a0 Should Tyler lie also or tell the committee the truth?<\/p>\n

Directions:\u00a0<\/b><\/i>Write an essay that provides a reasoned, well-supported argument in response to this ethical dilemma.<\/p>\n

Your paper should advance arguments to help support your own conclusion about the dilemma. The best essays will not simply summarize arguments put forth by others or make assertions, but will make claims using evidence and advance your own reasoning.<\/p>\n

You may want to reference outside sources \u2013 this is optional, not mandatory. Here, for example, is an excerpt about friendship from Book viii of Aristotle\u2019s Nicomachean Ethics<\/i>:<\/p>\n

The kinds of friendship may perhaps be cleared up if we first come\u00a0to know the object of love. For not everything seems to be loved but only\u00a0the lovable, and this is good, pleasant, or useful; but it would seem to\u00a0be that by which some good or pleasure is produced that is useful, so that\u00a0it is the good and the useful that are lovable as ends. Do men love, then,\u00a0the good, or what is good for them? These sometimes clash. So too with\u00a0regard to the pleasant. Now it is thought that each loves what is good\u00a0for himself, and that the good is without qualification lovable, and what\u00a0is good for each man is lovable for him; but each man loves not what is\u00a0good for him but what seems good. This however will make no difference;\u00a0we shall just have to say that this is ‘that which seems lovable’. Now\u00a0there are three grounds on which people love; of the love of lifeless objects\u00a0we do not use the word ‘friendship’; for it is not mutual love, nor is\u00a0there a wishing of good to the other (for it would surely be ridiculous\u00a0to wish wine well; if one wishes anything for it, it is that it may keep,\u00a0so that one may have it oneself); but to a friend we say we ought to wish\u00a0what is good for his sake. But to those who thus wish good we ascribe only\u00a0goodwill, if the wish is not reciprocated; goodwill when it is reciprocal\u00a0being friendship. Or must we add ‘when it is recognized’? For many people\u00a0have goodwill to those whom they have not seen but judge to be good or\u00a0useful; and one of these might return this feeling. These people seem to\u00a0bear goodwill to each other; but how could one call them friends when they\u00a0do not know their mutual feelings? To be friends, then, they must be mutually\u00a0recognized as bearing goodwill and wishing well to each other for one of\u00a0the aforesaid reasons.<\/p>\n

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics<\/i>, Book viii, 2<\/p>\n

Here are two other friendly edited collections of philosophers on friendship that may prove helpful:<\/p>\n