Alexandra Bartos-O’Neill

04.07.17
PHIL Honors Application
Purpose Statement

I got caught by an enthusiastic high school teacher when I was in the 9th grade. He
marched into the classroom one day and with his booming voice, gave me a call to action: to join
the mock trial team. Mock Trial was a public speaking activity that mimicked a courtroom trial.
This included analyzing affidavits, writing direct and cross examinations, giving speeches to a
jury. Argumentation was key. And so was speaking well. I was a shy and quiet student, so I
wasn’t sure what inspired him to think I would be good at speaking in public and critical
thinking and argumentation. But he pushed me anyway and that’s where I found my calling. In
class, I was a listener and in court, I was loud, a storyteller. I had found my passion.
Coming to college, I had a vague idea of what I wanted to achieve. I knew I wanted to be
some kind of lawyer, but I wasn’t sure what kind. I wasn’t sure what major I should have. I
wasn’t sure what skills I needed to gain. I wasn’t sure how to get to my goal. The one constant
was Mock Trial which I continued in college. But even then, on the collegiate level, I realized I
was behind. A good voice, a good tone, a good speech wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough to
persuade. I lacked skillful criticism and sound argumentation, but I didn’t know how to fix it. It
was then that I happened to take a philosophy of legal reasoning class at the UW. In that class,
we analyzed the premises of judges’ arguments and decisions, we learned what was sound, what
was valid and how the law is used in conjunction with philosophy and vice versa. That’s where I
began to piece together what I needed to do in order to become a lawyer. I couldn’t just become
a good speaker, I needed to be a convincing one and that could start with my writing. I began
taking philosophy class after philosophy class, all which challenged how I write persuasively and
how I even think to write to persuade. I wanted to write essays and speeches just as beautifully
crafted in terms of argumentation and language as a lot of judges’ decisions were. I finally
clicked when I started writing not with direct outlined premises, but when I wrote about applying
philosophical theories to real-life examples.
From there I was able to think critically about the roots of the law and how morality and
philosophy formed them. I began to see connections to other fields such as political science,
sociology, biology that I hadn’t seen before. Through the law and education, I wanted to examine
how philosophy influenced our daily lives. Much like the law, I saw philosophy as field to
discuss and a place where you could be both critical and supportive in different ways. To me,
law intersected with philosophy and is a way, philosophy applied to reality. I hope through
continuous studying in philosophy and the honors program and as a future lawyer, to become a
pillar to others as a supporter of the law or a criticizer.
I’m still not sure what particular field of the law I want to go into, but I now understand
better about the interactions of philosophy within the law and the public that I believe will enable
me to become a more knowledgeable and effective lawyer. This year, I gave several closing
arguments to a panel of lawyers for Mock Trial. This time, I didn’t just tell a beautiful story with
my voice alone, I made my speech convincing and also, with stronger persuasive skills,
powerful, as well.