Group for those who do OCR A2 Philosophy & Ethics [Post Exam Discussion]

everything else... I've just started RS revision just did the spec question on analogy vs symbols... my answers seems reflective of the AO1 points... just forgot to mention that symbols can be used when words can't express something >.<

2 weeks and counting.. I'm hoping for conscience and something on afterlife would be a God send (lol, pardon the pun..). I'm just so scared! Haven't done half the revision I should have and I need to get a few practice essays in before the actual exam.

Does anyone else have the AQA Biol 4 resit in the afternoon, too? I do! As if a 3 hour exam wasn't enough..

Has anyone got any notes on Omni-benevolent God- I was i'll when my teacher taught this and theres nothing really in the book!
Also My Ethics teacher said he thinks they could give us a question on the differences between normative ethics and meta ethics! how the hell would anyone answer that!?

God is good

• Medieval philosophers influenced by Greeks held God was simple not complex (Ockham’s razors). To describe God was to describe a perfect being (Anselm) Aquinas – ‘he lacks no excellence’
• Only perfect being worthy of worship – consists of goodness along w/ omnipotence & omniscience
• Swinburne – draws analogy w/ parent involving both punish/reward

Euthyrphro Dilemma

• What is the connection between God and objective moral good? - Omnipotence vs. omnibenevlonce
• Voluntarism - morality seems arbitrary – can we really reject the idea that there is an objective moral standard independent of God?
• Platonism – limits power & trad Christian sees him as highest reality & foundation of morality

Does God have a choice?

• If God only does ‘good’ things then it would seem that when he does something moral he couldn’t have done otherwise = really a moral action? (synonymous w/ free will and determinism + moral responsibility)
• However, not all accept that the goodness of an action is in the intention – only virtue ethics does (which is the foundation of Christian though)

What do we mean by good?

• meta ethics links
• If we take voluntarist approach, can apply Moore’s open q. argument – ‘is what God wills good?’
• Basing our lives on so called ‘will of God’ just subjective pref – Emotivism & prescriptivism

Problem of Evil

• God’s goodness of lesser value if he has to do good & is not freely choosing to do good actions
• Logically impossible for God to do evil (omnipotence definition)
• Links w/ miracles – if God is omnibenevolent then why water into wine & allow holocaust?
• God often see as partisan on old testament e.g. Joshua 10 defending Israelites in their violent battles
• Old testament actions often see as immoral e.g. Abraham sacrifice of Isaac
• Counter-arguments – epistemic distance + interpretation/creation of Bible

Should God reward & punish?

Judgement day fundamental concept in Christian + ultimately rewarded/punished in heaven or hell

Yes

• Kant – summum bonum suggest good God should reward. We are obliged by duty to try and bring about, is a world in which moral behaviour leads to happiness. Moral arguments states there must be an afterlife in which we are rewarded for moral actions (free will & determinism & moral responsibility link)
• Reflects trad views about afterlife & God as farther figure
• If God is just then surely people should be rewarded for their behaviour appropriately – problem of evil Hick everyone goes to heaven link
• Reward & punish central to our understanding of right & wrong (Skinner ? free will and determinism ? conscience)

No

• Means religious do good for hypothetical imperative (Kant) – however, omniscient God would see through
• If he’s omniscient seems contradictory to judge actions he caused (free will + Boethius)
• Omnibenevolence inc. forgiveness – if he is unable to forgive is he somehow less then than humans?
• Determinism – evil actions explained by determinism (undermines C concept of free will + free will defence)
• If morality is just about reward & punishment then doesn’t it become entirely empty?

Can hell exist?

• Against some C views + POE evil is illusion/separate from God
• Does the crime fit the punishment? i.e. how can a finite crime warrant infinite punishment? Inc. original sin fruit for thousands of years of evil?
• Universalists e.g. Hick – ultimately all humans will be saved
• Swinburne – human freedom must inc. freedom to damn ourselves
• Others give symbolic interpretation. Heaven & hell not real but intended to inspire commitment to teachings (religious language + hypothetical imperative)

It would be a miracle if conscience came up

Also, high UCL psych buddy!

haha, totally agree and hello! though.. I'm doubting by the day I'll get the grades. Especially for philosophy, it's only 2 weeks away! waaaaaaah

Has anyone got any notes on Omni-benevolent God- I was i'll when my teacher taught this and theres nothing really in the book!
Also My Ethics teacher said he thinks they could give us a question on the differences between normative ethics and meta ethics! how the hell would anyone answer that!?

How did your Jan results go? I need a B both exams to get the A overall. With the pot luck nature of examiners and the different subjects that come up I could get anything from an A* - D haha. How's psychology going?

Here's my omnibenevolence notes:


As for meta ethics, I'd do this:

what is normative ethics and meta-ethics
Ethical naturalism - by looking for what is right, it is being a normative theory by telling us what it means to be good and how to get there (by looking at the environment)
Intuitionism - this is more related to conscience, but by saying good is a universal concept, it is bordering normative ethics but it doesn't tell us how we can be good or to understand our intuition
Emotivism - not a normative ethical theory at all, can be extended to normative ethical theories are just their own boo-hurrah e.g. Bentham's theory is just hurrah pleasure and Kant is just hurrah universalism
Prescriptivism - this is very much a normative ethical theory as it's about writing laws which all must follow - similar to Kant

Seeing as there is no mark scheme available for the jan 2011 papers... i was wondering if people could give me feedback on the following essay response (I've bullet pointed what i wrote to summarise)

Critically assess the view that the conscience is the voice of reason


I didn't know how I could evaluate these points though. Any suggestions?

Lucky you! Well, January was messy. It wasn't a good time for me, so as a result I got an A in psychology and a D in biology (yeaah.. fml). It was a middling A in psych though, so I'm hedging my bets with getting an A* overall. That leaves philosophy to get an A* in.. so it adds a lot of pressure. I think getting an A is realistic, but I guess it's all down to the questions on the day.

I haven't really done a lot of revision for pschology, but it's one of my last exams so I'm concentrating on my resit biol 4 and this. I seriously think I'll be heading for queen mary though, the grades for UCL really are impossible.

Here's my omnibenevolance notes
Prescriptivism - this is very much a normative ethical theory as it's about writing laws which all must follow - similar to Kant

YOU ARE AMAZING!!! Thank you SO much for those notes! Could you possibly post your omnipotent ones too? (We had a mix up with teachers at this point in the course so I have v sparse notes on this topic and I reckon it is likely to come up in the exam!)
I'm sure you'll get an A*!

---also would anyone be willing to share/send me their notes on RELIGIOUS LANGUAGE please as I've just revised it all and want to check I've included eeeverything! Thanks in advance and hope everyone's revision is going well...

Did UCL specify the A*? You'll do fantastic I'm sure!