In a critical response paper, you have two tasks. First, you need to explain one argument that an author offers in support of their moral position. Second, you need to critically respond to that argument. Your job is not to argue against their conclusion, but to try to identify reasons for doubting their argument. So, while some author’s thesis might be something like this: • It is not impermissible to use animals for medical research because they do not have moral rights in any meaningful sense. Your job is to defend a thesis like this: • Cohen’s argument that medical testing is morally permissible is unpersuasive for his argument rests on the problematic assumption that only autonomous creatures can have the sorts of rights that would make it absolutely impermissible to use such creatures for medical experimentation. Your thesis is about some philosopher’s paper and only indirectly about the moral issue. This is not an opportunity to write a persuasive essay defending some substantive moral conclusion. The point of this exercise is to help you develop the ability to explain the views of another writer and to help you sharpen your critical skills. Think of your task as that of the defense attorney, provided that the attorney is not Ben Matlock. The defense attorney’s job is not to establish that their client is innocent. It is to take a look at the case being presented by the prosecution and trying to create reasonable doubt. The paper you are addressing is supposed to have settled a substantive moral issue by removing doubt. You can do your job and show that they did not do their job by pointing to grounds of reasonable doubt. Try to identify the author’s main argument and restate that argument in your own words. • Having identified the premises of the argument and the thesis that the author is trying to defend, your job is to try to show that the crucial premises are either false, unsupported, or premises no reasonable person would accept unless they already agreed with the author. • You will be required to fill out a coversheet to hand in with your paper that contains the following pieces of information: a statement of the author’s thesis and a summary of the author’s argument for that thesis; a statement of your thesis; a statement explaining precisely which assumption or assumptions you can criticize in criticizing the relevant argument. Coversheet Name: Section: What article will you discuss? What is the author’s thesis? Give a brief statement of the argument for that thesis you will discuss in this paper. What is your thesis? Precisely where does the argument run into trouble? Why do you think the argument is problematic?