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

His basis of sentience, or what we should look after is based on consciousness/ability to feel pain. So he would say it's ok to tear down trees as they can't feel pain, but not ok to kill a dog as it does (he said other utilitarians were speciest). My evaluation is, while this works in theory, in practice he would condone abortion on the basis the child can't feel pain and also those in a vegatitive state on life support for the same reason. Furthermore, he points out himself that he's only speculating plants can't feel pain, so if his guess work is wrong, we shouldn't be destroying rainforests.

Howdy howdy howdy

Was wondering, does anyone have any idea how to answer one of the very open-ended applied ethics theories such as:

Ethical theories are of no use when talking about Sexual Ethics (Or something along those lines...)

Do I give all five view points? And how would I go about structuring one of these? We never practiced anything like this in the lesson...

Howdy howdy howdy

Was wondering, does anyone have any idea how to answer one of the very open-ended applied ethics theories such as:

Ethical theories are of no use when talking about Sexual Ethics (Or something along those lines...)

Do I give all five view points? And how would I go about structuring one of these? We never practiced anything like this in the lesson...

Does anyone know whats come up (topic wise) for A2 Philosophy and A2 Ethics since the specimen paper?

Ethics:
http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnxmYXJyb3dzdGhpbmdzfGd4OjQ4OGI4ODk4ODg3Mjg2ZGQ

Philosophy
http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnxmYXJyb3dzdGhpbmdzfGd4OjE0OTdiNGE2NDkzODExNmE&pli=1

Don't click the links if you don't want to know the past questions!

For the environment, you need to consider:
Whether the environment (plants and animals) have intrinsic or extrinsic value. So like does the environment have value in itself, or is it merely there for human use.

From here, you could talk about the different theories:
1. Eco-holism - Gaia hypothesis
2. Shallow ecology - Plants and animals are here for humans to exploit them for their own uses
3. Deep ecology - Plants and animals have value in themselves, and should not be exploited. We need to preserve them as they deserve to exist for their own sake.

Urmmm other issues would be like whether the environment suffers as a result of business e.g. building factories everywhere, pollution and the like.

Those are the only two I can think of at the moment.

Hope it helped a bit

Thanks much

Am I right in saying these are the scholars for each view:

1) ecoholism = Lovelock
2) shallow = singer
3) deep = leopold, naess, taylor
4) anthropocentric = kant, aquinas, (old) church, descartes, Mill

Bentham acknowledged animals feel pain too so said we should incl. in hedonic calculus
Virtue and Situation Ethics are very flexible on this issue and can go either way (though would tend towards preserving environment)

The ones I have bolded are the ones which I haven't been taught. My teacher didn't teach us about Descartes or Taylor, so I don't know there.

I'd say Mill didn't hold an anthropocentric view on the environment, because he saw admiring nature and its beauty as a higher pleasure...so we should preserve it.

With Aquinas you could swing it both ways - if we use nature to prove statements like 'murder is wrong' then surely we should preserve it. Although he did say that humans were above animals.

Well for both of them I'd structure it in the various aspects of VE:

Origins
Agent centred
Eudimonia
Golden mean
Practice
Role models
Modern perspectives

For the first question I'd relate back to the question about practicality throughout. e.g. in origins mention it's relation to natural law and how it can be seen as an extension of that and therefore practical there. How the golden mean avoids issues of relativism and absolutism so is very practical for certain ethical issues e.g. contraception, but not others like rape etc. Also, how modern perspectives argue it's the most practical theory. I'd chuck in a bit of synoptic, especially with natural law and mention how in VE's avoidance of being a normative ethical theory, it is

For the second it's exactly the same question, but a bit more absolute. Only thing I'd do differently was contrast it more to absolute theories like Kant to demonstrate how it fails to provide absolute answers, only relative ones.

Ah right, fair point on Mill and Aquinas
Descartes basically likened animals to organic robots saying they're not rational and act completely on impulses so should not be attached with any moral significance.

Can you help give me pointers in distinguishing between what Naess and Leopold said?
I have for Naess:
- all life is equal and should be allowed to flourish
- no hierarchy in importance of organisms
- proposed agenda to reduce population growth, shift policy away from economic growth, live in smaller communities, not to plunder the earth, promote biodiversity
- called Xian views of dominion arrogant.
- everything is interconnected

What did Leopold say? All I have is that he agreed that every thing is interconnected :s

I really hate this topic. It's so woolly! However I'm trying to piece it together coherently as I think there's a good chance of it coming up seeing as it was business ethics for the past two exams.

EDIT: for anybody wanting a good summary of envrionmental ethics: http://tutor2u.net/blog/index.php/religious-studies/comments/environmental-ethics/

:O Business has come up for the last two years? Wooooooo I hate Business Ethics, although after revising it I feel slighty better about it.

Can anyone explain Prichard and Ross' contributions to intutionism? Not really getting :/

Can anyone explain Prichard and Ross' contributions to intutionism? Not really getting :/

Can someone quickly explain the inconsistant triad? My AS notes have gone walkabouts.. thanks!