The writing contest is held each year towards the end of the spring semester, giving philosophy majors and minors a chance to show their argumentative skills and philosophical understanding in writing. Students arrive at the contest site with blank paper and no idea what they'll be challenged to write about. The topic is announced, and everyone writes for a set amount of time. Then each student presents his or her essay to all assembled. These essays will be judged blind by three faculty members and one winner will be selected. The winner will be awarded $100.
The 2009 writing contest was held on April 21, 5:00-6:00pm in BUTE 103. Prof. Eric Gampel, Prof. Joe Hwang, and Prof. Robert Jones served as judges.
Participants were asked to write on the following topic:
A race of super-intelligent beings land on earth. Their intelligence is to humans as human intelligence is to cattle. To them, Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem is equivalent to their version of tic-tac-toe. The aliens decide to round up humans into concentration camps and slaughter them for use as food. Our weapons technology is ineffectual. Physical resistance is futile. But they are extremely logical beings and feel compelled by the normativity of reason. And they don't believe in the supernatural so arguments about God, religion, and souls only waste their time and get them angry. The only hope is that you can offer a good argument for why humans should not be treated in this way. What argument might you give?
The winner this year is Jake Acosta.