Hello!

Next semester I’ll be writing my bachelor thesis within the subject of Practical philosophy. This will be my first big original essay within philosophy and I know picking a good subject is key. I’ve been told that at this level the main focus of the thesis should be the argumentation and referencing, not so much it being a super original topic. But obviously I want the topic I choose to be interesting, I’ll be spending many hours reading about it.

Basically I’m having a bit of trouble deciding what to write about, mainly narrowing a topic down to a specific question. I’m looking for some advice so, I’ve written out three questions below.

1. How do you go from a topic that you’re interested in to asking a specific question? Should you have the arguments ready before you select question, so you know which direction you’re gonna go (and if you have a worthwhile argument to make)? Where and how to start?

2. Building on the first question: I think it would be interesting to choose a topic that is relevant in our time and perhaps even intriguing to people outside philosophy. This feels like a good idea to increase the chance to get it published, as well as it being something future employers could read. Is it a bad idea to decide on a subject this way? If not, how should one think about formulating a philosophical question/thesis with this starting point?

(For instance: data collection and how algorithms can predict behaviour without people realizing it's happening. This is an area I’m sure has ethically/philosophically interesting aspects, however, I don’t know where to go from there. How to narrow it down without it becoming just a broad question about personal integrity - which doesn’t necessarily apply only to the problem. I’ve also thought about writing about the pandemic, but I just end up with really unoriginal ideas about “triage” (who should be prioritized when medical resources are lacking etc…) Some philosophical depth might be lacking in these ideas...)

3. If 2 is a bad idea I’m very open to other suggestions. What are some recommended areas/questions to look into? Some of my interests are ethics, game theory, meta ethics (naturalism, quasi-realism mainly), choice theory, Hume, the good life, political philosophy, free will… gosh list could be made longer. But I’m also open to new ideas (although no theoretical philosophy, meta-physics and the like). Another starting point would be to just pick a philosopher and discuss their arguments, so I’m open to hearing about philosophers worth exploring as well, that are not too well known yet not too unknown (the golden middle way I guess).


Maybe that was a lot, but I’m really thankful for any advice!
Take care,