Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Associate Dean,

I am writing to you to appeal the grade I received for PHIL 151 paper 2, 74%, on December 4th, 2025. Attached to this letter are the paper in question, relevant email conversations, all feedback I have received, my explanatory justification for why I should receive a higher grade, and all course materials I have access to relevant to this appeal.

This course does not have a syllabus. I only received a few lines of vague feedback. I have reached out for further feedback, no response, and no expected response. There is no course policy of informal appeal, and the professor also refused to review it. For this paper, I was assigned to address the question:

What is Hume’s argument on behalf of compatibilism concerning freedom of the will, and is the argument successful? Why, or why not?

Following previous feedback, I opted to address this two-parted question (“what is Hume’s argument”, and “is the argument successful”) with this thesis:

In this paper, I will argue that Hume’s argument on behalf of compatibilism concerning freedom of the will is that freedom of the will can co-exist with determinism, but I will argue that his argument for why this is, is not completely successful because of his definition of determinism (“necessity”).

The feedback only addresses the thesis. It does not make clear what part of the thesis is problematic or “argues for both sides” of Hume’s argument. I had read the thesis to another professor of philosophy as well as to upper-year philosophy students; they mentioned no issue. The thesis is two parted since the first part addresses the “what is the argument” question, and the other addresses my (student) opinion on Hume’s success. I did this to ensure I explicitly addressed all parts of the question and not to cause ambiguity.

If the confusion is over “not completely successful” and specifically the use of the word “completely”, I added that word because I found it rather pretentious to make a claim by a first-year student that a centuries-old philosophical argument is completely unsuccessful from my limited study. Moreover, the entire purpose of my thesis was to narrow down on a specific portion of Hume’s argument which I argued was “unclear and unconvincing”, and without further study, I cannot say reasonably that Hume’s entire argument is completely unsuccessful. The reason I narrowed down on that particular part, is I thought it would make my argument more nuanced, convincing, and reasonable within the confines of a 1500 word first-year paper. Finally, I addressed some portions of Hume’s argument are “reasonable”, but I cannot fathom how within the context of this paper that is taken to be an argumentation or even endorsement of the other side. I was given feedback in other courses to reasonably address the positives of an opposing argument, as it makes my argument more well-rounded, convincing, and plausible.

We received no marking rubric or any transparency into how these papers are assessed. Based on my meeting with Dr Smith on November 3rd, 2025, prior to submitting paper 2, the learning outcomes, and the writing advice we received from tutorial, this is my humble understanding of what makes a quality (A-level) paper:

Strong synthesis and demonstrated understanding or explanation of philosophical concepts. The feedback says this was a strength of my paper.

Strong argumentation and addressal of the question. I believe the chief critique of my paper was over this. However, I believe I provided quite sufficient evidence for why Hume’s argument is not successful, based on Hume’s own logic and quotes from the inconsistency in his argument of “necessity”. While I did write that Hume’s other definitions have certain reasonability, I reasonably cannot see where I argued for the other side, nor can I see how my argument is unclear as I spent approximately half the paper defending my position.

Based on the writing advice we received, to a “uninformed but intelligent” reader, this argument should be quite convincing. I also did not use any pretentious, unnecessary, or convoluted language, nor did I leave any necessary concepts unexplained. Please also note that this course is supposed to be marked on a first-year level for what is appropriate for this level of understanding of philosophy based on course lectures, tutorial discussions, and assigned readings on this subject.

I spoke with the professor two days before the grades were released, and he mentioned he did not grade nor even read paper 2. At a previous meeting (November 3rd), he mentioned he did not grade or read my first paper. There is no evidence he looks at any of the papers for any student significantly.

I hope you will find my letter reasonable and facilitate the regrade of this assignment.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Yoyo Wu