Instructions for Group Case Analysis and Presentation Project

The case analysis and presentation is a chance for you to work creatively on a moral issue that concerns you by designing a case study of your own. It may be (but need not be) based on your own experience. This outline is intended to guide you in setting up the basic structure of your case, but you should feel free to customize it to fit the particular moral problem you envision. Each group should meet with me at least once before you present your case to the class. While presentation of your case in front of the class will factor in to your grade for the assignment, the majority of this grade will be based on your written case. The written portion of your case should be approximately 10 typed, double-spaced pages (but this is only a rough guideline). You will have 15-20 minutes to present your case in class and will be responsible for generating discussion about your case for approximately 15 minutes. Case write-ups are due on the last day of class, although earlier submissions are welcome.

I. Description of the Issue and Identification of the Question

This section should contain your description of the moral issue that interests your group. This is where you should address the descriptive dimension we have been talking about in class. Identify the particular moral issue for which your case will serve as an examination. Then formulate a particular question that will guide your development of the case. So, for example, suppose that your group decides that it will investigate the moral issue of consumerism in the global economy. You should state why this issue is an urgent and complex moral problem (for example, because of scarcity of certain natural resources, because of the inequitable distribution of economic opportunity around the world, because of the overwhelmingly high percentage of global resources consumed by North America and Europe). You must also formulate a particular question that will shape and guide the story you develop. For example, suppose you formulate a question posed to the context of an automobile manufacturer. (“Should the world’s automobile manufacturers voluntarily scale back production of vehicles that demand a significantly higher than average amount of gasoline to operate?”) This is a question from which you can then write a story and create a situation of, say, a board of directors of an automobile manufacturer, or a promising young engineer who has the opportunity to start work with Ford Motor Company. Alternately, you might formulate a question at the level of consumption of certain goods. (“Does a person with significant disposable income have an obligation not to purchase certain consumer goods [for example, a sport utility vehicle] or to purchase certain consumer goods [for example, a hybrid-type automobile]?”)

II. Character Background and Development of the Situation

In this next section, you will have an opportunity to develop the particular case as a response to the question you have identified. So, for example, suppose in the first section you have identified poverty in the United States as the moral issue you will focus on and have stated why it is a pressing moral issue in our world. Next, you have identified a specific question related to this issue? (For example, “Does a family have a duty, as a family, to serve the poor in its community?”) You will then proceed to develop characters and a story that leads the characters involved to respond to the question you have posed. You might tell a story of a family of five who has struggled for many years to make ends meet and has recently experienced some good economic fortune. This family has paid off many of its debts and has finally saved enough money to move into a larger house. Both parents will have to work longer hours in order to cover their new mortgage and they will be moving into a neighborhood in which the majority of their neighbors still have significantly more money than they do. This will put pressure on them to work more, thereby decreasing their time together and their time for volunteer work, and they will become increasingly removed from at least a day-to-day visual confrontation with people who are struggling to get by, as this family was just a short while ago. This leads them to confront the question identified in part one: “Do we, as a family, have an obligation to serve the poor in our community?” By extension, this question puts pressure on their plan to buy a new house and move into a new neighborhood. You should tell the story so that the question the characters confront is, for them, a realistic question that might arise and something that makes sense given their background and family history.

III. Identification of Sources for Discernment and Possible Courses of Action

As indicated in the short description of this assignment in the syllabus, the characters and situation you create must find their way to engagement with some of the sources for thinking about moral issues found in the Catholic theological tradition. This is where you will engage the sources for discernment we have been discussing in class, that is the sources of moral knowledge that factor into a decision as reasons for pursuing this or that course of action. You may use, but are not limited to, the readings you have done for this course. The identification of sources might take a simple or a complex form. For example, suppose that the issue you identify in part one is sexual promiscuity. You might decide that the following question is a logical extension of this issue: “Should an unmarried couple that intends to be married within the next two years have sexual relations before marriage?” You then construct a story about this seemingly happy pair, granting their intention to stay together forever. They seem to be socially capable, well- intentioned individuals who very well might be happy together for a long time. However, they have identified premarital sex as something that could either help or hurt their relationship. Now suppose that they are at least annually practicing Catholics, or perhaps neither is but they are attending a Catholic college, or one of them has a Catholic friend who keeps trying to pass off Catholic literature to them. Some way or other, in the course of your story, they should find their way to writings or conversations about Catholic theology pertaining to the question they are confronting. They should use these sources to sort out the possible ways they might answer the question they have identified. It should be clear in this part of the case that the people involved have come to realize that there are multiple courses of action they might pursue. Each possible course of action should be analyzed with respect to the sources identified. Remember that reason, scripture, tradition and experience (personal or communal) are all legitimate sources for discernment, so your characters might consider one or all of these sources as they think through their decision. They might also be influenced by sources outside the Catholic theological tradition.

IV. Determination of Judgment and Selection of a Course of Action

Here you identify how the characters you have created resolve the issue in question. What do they do? Why do they act in this way? Were there some goods, values or principles that took precedence over others in their decision? Were the characters involved at odds with each other and did they come to different decisions (this is a very real possibly when we deal with complex moral problems). How did the various communities of which they were a part (family, group of friends, church, town) respond to their decision? This is where the narrative portion of the case ends. This is where you will address both the normative dimension and the practical dimension we have been discussing in class.

V. Evaluation of the Decision and Identification of Lingering Questions

This section is intended to leave the case’s tentative resolution open-ended. By this I mean that, even when we come to decisions about moral matters, very seldom do we have complete comfort or certainty that we have acted in the right way. There are always lingering questions or problems that emerge from the decisions we have made. Our choices always have effects on other individuals or communities that are very difficult to foresee much less control. In this final section, you should identify the questions or problems that arise after the characters you have presented come to a judgment about the problem they face. Part of being a created being with physical, mental and spiritual limits is that every moral choice we make, even if it is about a relatively minor matter or even if we are sure that we have made the right choice, remains in some way tragic. Freedom is exercised and character is formed but it remains to be seen how these choices play out in the long run. This is the fundamental dimension we have been talking about in class. You should express your own judgment about how the characters acted and whether there were ongoing questions that the people reading or listening to the case should consider. Remember, because you are presenting this case, you need a basis from which to generate a discussion. You might identify the issues you take to be the ones most likely to cause problems in the future. You might judge that, while the characters you developed acted in one way given the resources at their disposal, given other experiences or social influences they might have acted in a different way. The point of this section is to express your concerns about this issue and your acknowledgement (if you wish) that there is more than one legitimate resolution to the issue. In this section, each member of the group should feel free to write a dissenting opinion, especially if she or he feels strongly that the group’s judgment of the case is not right. You may present this diversity of judgment in the presentation, or the case write-up, or both, or neither.

Grading Standard

1. Organization and Clarity of the Written Case: Does your case follow an orderly progression? Have you included the basic parts of the case outlined for you (or if you have not, have you given a reason why you have not)? Is your writing clear and free from distracting errors?
2. Originality, Creativity and Depth of Analysis: Have you made an attempt to tell a creative and original story? Are the characters believable and distinctive? Does something set their engagement with the question apart from caricatured treatments of the issue? Have you appreciated and tried to come to terms with the complexity of the issue and its psychological impact?
3. Familiarity and Understanding of Source Material: Have you demonstrated that you know how to work with Catholic theological sources in thinking through moral issues? Have you considered both their claims to truth and their limits?
4. In-Class Presentation and Quality of Discussion Generated: Have you presented your case to the class in a way that engaged your audience? Were you prepared for questions from the class and did you come up with your own questions to draw the class into discussion about your case?
5. Contribution to the Group: You will each have an opportunity to grade the other members of your group for their contribution to your overall effort. This part of the grading standard will determine whether you receive the “case grade” or a higher or lower variation of that grade as your final grade for the assignment.

• Class presentation: 25%
• Written case: 75%.