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A2 - May question RS OCR philosophical/ ethics investigations

Poll

what ethics and philosophy questions are coming up in may ?

Here's my view on what might come up:

The examiner seems to want to give the questions a twist in the past couple years with January 2012 exam from conscience 'they linked conscience to sexual ethics. Nice twist!, yeah nice my ****ing ARSE! and meta ethics on Emotivism , even though it was still ezpz!


so what you think will come up , i hope meta what you think ? meta done well in January and June 2011 so unlikely , whereas conscience has done **** and is expected by lots of peeps to come up?

also environment ethics is also expected? I would love sexual however.

let me know what u think anyways ?

Scroll to see replies

Reply 1
philosophy
RL -maybe
miracles
nature of god
RE
Reply 2
For ethics.. My teacher predicted all 3 applied ethics and conscience coming up.

Can anyone help me in the structure on writing an A2 answer? How do you go about it.
Reply 3
Original post by ManPowa
For ethics.. My teacher predicted all 3 applied ethics and conscience coming up.

Can anyone help me in the structure on writing an A2 answer? How do you go about it.


It's impossible for all three applied ethics to come up because two of them are classified as one so there are only 2 applied Ethics topics. I only can see that happening if a question mixes Business and Environmental Ethics together and then you have a Sexual Ethics question. I have no idea why Business and Environmental Ethics are classed as one topic.

Well, when I write my essays I make a point in one paragraph and then I critique it in the next or the same paragraph. Sometimes I write two paragraphs and then critique all of what I have said and I relate it to the question. In the January Philosophy exam I did the Miracles question and the Falsification Principle question. The Falsification Principle question was " The Falsification Principle poses no threat to religious belief". Discuss. When I answered it I wrote about various points about the FP and then critique each one after stating how its weakness show that it is no challenge to religious belief and how its strengths could suggest otherwise. I don't know if I'm making any sense, lol.

I think Sexual Ethics, Business Ethics, Virtue Ethics and Conscience will come up. I really want Free Will and Determinism to come up, but it seems as it if comes up every year and candidates generally do well on it :frown:
Reply 4
what about philosophy do you think RL and miracles will come up?
Reply 5
The Falsification principle Q looks tough I did Ethics in Jan I hope we get good questions :smile:
Reply 6
Original post by ManPowa
For ethics.. My teacher predicted all 3 applied ethics and conscience coming up.

Can anyone help me in the structure on writing an A2 answer? How do you go about it.


I structure my essays differently for Philosophy and Ethics (might be as one teachers seems to prefer it one way..)
Anyway, for Philosophy I explain the arguments, relating it to the question. It could be a for/against argument, or simply explaining a collection of theories/points of view. Then I critque all of what I have written, having basically a mini-argument with myself :') However for ethics I do it differently. For example, I'll present an argument for the conscience then critique it straight afterwards, and do the whole essay like this. Both ways seem to work, just depends what you're more comfortable with. As long as you make sure you explain thoroughly and critique well, should be fine either way! :smile:
Reply 7
My teacher contacted OCR asking if it is common practice to link conscience and meta-ethics with each other due to the question that linked sexual ethics and conscience in January. They supposedly confirmed they will not be doing this again (whether just this year or ever I'm not sure).

Based on an OCR conference she attended, she also got the impression that sexual ethics will not be coming up in this year's paper.
(edited 11 years ago)
Reply 8
Original post by PatrickD
My teacher contacted OCR asking if it is common practice to link topics with each other due to the question that linked sexual ethics and conscience in January. They supposedly confirmed they will not be doing this again (whether just this year or ever I'm not sure).

Based on an OCR conference she attended, she also got the impression that sexual ethics will not be coming up in this year's paper.


Are you serious??:confused:
Reply 9
Original post by ManPowa
Are you serious??:confused:


Sorry, just to clarify, what she meant was that conscience is unlikely to be combined with an applied ethics topic or any other topic. The specification says:

3.11 G582: A2 Religious Ethics
Applied Ethics
The ethical theories

Natural Law;

Kantian Ethics;

Utilitarianism;

Religious Ethics;

Virtue Ethics


as applied to the applied ethics topics listed below...


As you can see, there is no mention of applying the theories in the conscience and meta-ethics topics so it was quite harsh of them to combine conscience and sexual ethics in January. Of course, they will more than likely link a theory-based topic with an applied topic as mentioned in the specification.
Reply 10
Original post by PatrickD
Sorry, just to clarify, what she meant was that conscience is unlikely to be combined with an applied ethics topic or any other topic. The specification says:



As you can see, there is no mention of applying the theories in the conscience and meta-ethics topics so it was quite harsh of them to combine conscience and sexual ethics in January. Of course, they will more than likely link a theory-based topic with an applied topic as mentioned in the specification.


Okay I understand that about conscience being applied to the ethical issues. That was a horrible question. :eek: What I wanted to know is if sexual ethics will be coming up in this forth coming paper.

btw Can I ask what are you predicting?
And if you're leaving anything out?? :rolleyes:
Reply 11
Original post by ManPowa
Okay I understand that about conscience being applied to the ethical issues. That was a horrible question. :eek: What I wanted to know is if sexual ethics will be coming up in this forth coming paper.

btw Can I ask what are you predicting?
And if you're leaving anything out?? :rolleyes:


All my teacher said was that, based on what an OCR examiner said at a conference (all official and above board might I add), she got the impression that sexual ethics wasn't going to come up. I doubt it was any more than someone asking about it and the guy saying it wasn't important; he certainly didn't come straight out saying it wasn't going to be on the paper.

As for leaving anything out, no I'm not going to. Believe it or not, we haven't even learnt any of sexual ethics yet as my teacher has gone into a lot of detail (perhaps a bit too much) on some of the other topics, as well as the fact that she doesn't think it will come up. It seems a simple enough topic though so I'm still going to revise it this weekend and we'll be learning it in class next week!
Original post by PatrickD
My teacher contacted OCR asking if it is common practice to link conscience and meta-ethics with each other due to the question that linked sexual ethics and conscience in January. They supposedly confirmed they will not be doing this again (whether just this year or ever I'm not sure).

Based on an OCR conference she attended, she also got the impression that sexual ethics will not be coming up in this year's paper.


Thanks for that! :smile:
Reply 13
Original post by lampshade1
Thanks for that! :smile:


No problem. A word of warning: there is no guarantee that sexual ethics won't come up and personally I'm still going to revise it but I'd say there's a good chance it won't. :wink:

Don't quote me on that!
Original post by PatrickD
No problem. A word of warning: there is no guarantee that sexual ethics won't come up and personally I'm still going to revise it but I'd say there's a good chance it won't. :wink:

Don't quote me on that!


Oh yeah! I'm still going to revise it :P don't worry...I won't come back to you if it is on it and go crazy! :') we're all speculating anyway about it...it's not like we've exactly agreed in the above poll!
Reply 15
Thanks guys , for your feedback from the poll , and the results from views and conference about sexual and conscience , all were very useful :biggrin:
Reply 16
Can anybody help me? I am struggling to evaluate Omniscience of God (attributes of God) because booklet from school just had little things said by some people and more on the theory!

Would really appreciate any strengths/weaknesses of:

Knowledge of sensation/senses
Middle Knowledge of God
Knowledge of past,present and future - impacts on human free will.

Any eval would be great thank you! :smile:
Reply 17
Original post by raveen789
Can anybody help me? I am struggling to evaluate Omniscience of God (attributes of God) because booklet from school just had little things said by some people and more on the theory!

Would really appreciate any strengths/weaknesses of:

Knowledge of sensation/senses
Middle Knowledge of God
Knowledge of past,present and future - impacts on human free will.

Any eval would be great thank you! :smile:


Can answer some of it:

Middle knowledge (God knows the "what ifs" in life):
Strengths: Doesn't limit human free will (as suggested by some philosophers) and you could add a synoptic link with the problem of evil in there (Augustine Theodicy/Irenaeous Theodicy - which both rely on free will to explain the problem of evil.)
Weaknesses: Theory suggests that God can see the future. Swinburne argues that it is logically impossible for God to see the future.

Knowledge of past, present and future (Divine foreknowledge - Boethius):
Strenghts: doesn't limit God's omnipotence
Weaknesses: Mackie - If God could have seen the result of creation (The Fall) he could have made free beings incapable of committing sin.
Limits our free will - suggests that God is the causer (however, some philosophers disagree and argue that God might be able to see what necessarily might happen, but it doesn't mean he is the case).
If we are not free to act then God has no right to reward and punish.
Reply 18
So worried for philosophy this year, we've still not been taught anything on the nature of God so i'm having to teach it to myself... a week before the exam. Any help would be really appreciated, also struggling to remember all the other topics! Resitting ethics and hoping for an A in it as well, really hope there is a question on meta-ethics and free will! :smile:
Reply 19
Original post by laureneb10
So worried for philosophy this year, we've still not been taught anything on the nature of God so i'm having to teach it to myself... a week before the exam. Any help would be really appreciated, also struggling to remember all the other topics! Resitting ethics and hoping for an A in it as well, really hope there is a question on meta-ethics and free will! :smile:



If you give me an area where you are particularly having trouble I can give it a shot of helping you.

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