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

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I thought the questions were fairly straight forward, no nasty ones or at least i didn't do the nasty ones.

I also thought the philosophy was better than the ethics.

woo :P

Reply 961

skygirl999

Original post by ojpearson

Hi all,

I'm new here so apologies if I don't manage to grasp the right ways of posting but just a quick comment:

Cool exam today, I think philosophy went better that ethics... but here's my question - I'm intrigued about how people know what they need to get As this year, like saying "Need a low C to get an A" - can I ask you what I need?

I got 87 for Ethics and 89 for Philosophy (both an A grade) at AS, so any ideas what I had to get in the exam earlier today?

Thanks, and well done everyone :smile:

Ok so your total was 176 UMS. To get an A you have to get 320 UMS, which means you would need an extra 144 ums extra, which is 72 per exam. Thats a low B in both philosophy and ethics. But then equally you would for example be able to get a C in one and an A in the other, so long as you add up to 144 UMS.
To get an A* you would have had to have gotton 180 UMS just on the A2 units, which would mean 90 UMS in each which is a middle A in each.
Hope that helps :smile:

Reply 962

skygirl999

Original post by Pipthesalad

i used tiger woods as an example in the extramarital sex question LOL :smile:

Lol, good one! I managed to get in the fact that the president of South Africa has many wives! It was related to the idea of polygamy and culturally relative morals...have no idea what question though :/ I think it might have been determinism, LOL!

Reply 963

ojpearson

Original post by skygirl999

Brilliant, thank you. So a low B... the exam was OK so I hope I've done enough.

Thanks and good luck to you :smile:

Reply 964

skygirl999

Original post by ojpearson

Brilliant, thank you. So a low B... the exam was OK so I hope I've done enough.

Thanks and good luck to you :smile:

You are very welcome :smile:

Good luck, I hope you get the grade you want/need :biggrin:

You should be on target for an A if you managed it at AS, or at least a high B :smile:

Reply 965

sarehh

Original post by Anna Louise

Philosophy
i spent ages chatting on about verificationism, the weak and the stong, falsification and bliks, the parable of the university student. mitchell and the partisan and the stranger. then realised time was of the essence and i hadn't manage to add in about myths, symbols, analogies so briefly looked over that, mentioned univocal and equivocal language, that paul tillich used the flag, and about peter cole saying they deepen our experience and intuition of god rather than lead to unbelief and scepticism yardy yardy yarhh ! butt.. i FORGOT to put in about 'the grounded being' as i was rushing through lack of time :/

i also did the soul question, talked about dualism and monism, and dawkins darwinsim on genese and the covenant between god and abraham verifying it. i also said an after life proves it's distinct, but that was more desperation for a variety of points ! think i allso mentioned the eschatological aspect and so the wicked are punished in god so the idea of the sould being distinct from the body supports the view of an afterlife. i mention reincarnation, but not the kerygma thing, couldn't remember what it was or where to fit it in :/ i managed to get the epicurus quote about death being of no concern in there too !

Ethics

then for ethics i did free will and determinsim, think it was a bit of a disjointed essay but we shall see ! and the meta-ethics one, and spoke of the is-ought gap, gave an explanation of emotivism, put in about prescriptivism, and mentioned intuitionism. and put in the odd quote here and there.

my problem is always timing ! i get to carried away on the first question and don't leave enough time for the second :/ but i only need a low c to keep my a, so i'm confident i got it :smile:

I did the exact same questions as you for both papers! But I didn't put anything in about an afterlife for the soul, :/ but bought in religious experience, also a bit on Demicritus and 'soul atoms' for the materialist side. nothing about symbol, analogy or myth for language (though i contemplated analogy, i couldn't thing how to get it in there!). I banged on about verification, falsification + the garden analogy (both Flew's and Wisdoms), then Wittgenstein and language games, which seemed to take up like 6 pages!

I was sick of writing by the time it got to ethics, though let out a cheeky grin when i twigged that one of the questions was free will and determinism, which i'd practised at the weekend! Hoo-rah! Or, boo/hurrah :biggrin:

Oh god i'm so sad.

Anyway, it sounds like you absolutely MERKED it!

Reply 966

Oxmatt

Looks like I did the most popular combo of 1 2 for both papers... good questions this year. My answers might have been a touch pedestrian though... still, sneaked in a cheeky bit of Malebranche for the lols so I'm happy with that. Just glad it's over!

Reply 967

purplefrog

Original post by purplefrog

For Ethics:

They have asked:

Spoiler

And they can ask us on:

Spoiler

Sexual ethics always seems to come up. And then they alternate between business/environment each year. Meta ethics hasn't come up since the first paper, so that looks very likely too and virtue ethics seems to be rare too...
For the final one, I'd say its between consicence/free will - seeing as they're both huge topics and came up in the last paper.

Prediction:
Sexual Ethics
Evironmental Ethics
Virtue Ethics/Meta Ethics
Free Will/Conscience

Basically revise everything :tongue:

Original post by purplefrog

From what I can see, the past philosophy questions have been:

Spoiler

Out of the following topics:

Spoiler

They have yet to ask us on God's omnipotence, soul/mind/body so I think at least one of those two will come up.
I also think as they did miracles in jan 11, religious experiences will come up.
And some form of religious language. Either comparing one against the other or critically analysing one type.

So predictions:
God's Nature: Omnipotence
Religious Experience
Religious Language
Souls

Any thoughts??

I'll do an ethics one later.

Quoting myself here, but looks like I predicted correctly on the most part 8-) woooooo! I feel that's a greater achievement than my actual paper lol... i am sad beyond help *hides in a corner*

Reply 968

rockout24

did someone answer Q4 abt visions?? what did everyone write on that question?? im just wondering if its right to put sociological challenge as well?! it is right to say sociological explanation, into some extent is a scientific explanation??

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 969

Pipthesalad

Original post by skygirl999

haha

Reply 970

Nickyxx

Original post by rockout24

I didn't do Q4, but I think I would've put sociological explanation in, because it's a social science :smile:

Reply 971

rockout24

Original post by Nickyxx

I didn't do Q4, but I think I would've put sociological explanation in, because it's a social science :smile:

the fact that u said sociology is a social science made me feel better abt my answer.

Reply 972

ojpearson

Really quick question...

quite a lot of discussion going round in our school and not really sure of the answer: Say, for example, a candidate gets their philosophers muddled up then would they still get some marks? E.g. Hare and Hick the wrong way round etc.

Just wondering whether if the thoery was correct but the philosophers weren't, what would happen.

Reply 973

senator88

Was so happy when 'religious language is meaningless came up', apart from that one i also did the one on life after death but didn't feel as confident on that one, also ran out of time cos there was so much to write on religious language! ethics paper wasn't as good, i did the meta ethics and free will one. preferred meta ethics, though!

Reply 974

senator88

Original post by Liam_G

I know how you feel, in my AS exam I got an A in Philosophy and a D in Ethics, so I resat Ethics and thought it went brilliantly... only to find that I got another D :indiff:

3rd time lucky :rolleyes:

Haha, thats literally EXACTLY what happened to me!

Reply 975

j_09

Original post by rockout24

i did this q. didn't mention the sociological challenge though as I was running out of time and found sociological challenge v. hard to link to science.

Reply 976

Noodlzzz

Original post by Oxmatt

I managed to sneak in a bit of Heidegger and Kierkegaard, I was quite proud :P

I assume your doing philosophy at uni by your sig?

Reply 977

Katie24116

I only sat the ethics paper today, I thought the questions were really great!

I did Virtue ethics + extra marital sex + Enivonmental issues- secular vs religious

Environmental issues went really well I think: total dream question.

I was torn between virtue & meta-ethics absolutely 100% regret about choosing virtue :frown:

I gave a good description and compared to kant's categorical imperative + mill's utilitarianism. I also mentioned the additions of 20th century virtue ethicists but I just don't think my points were very good. I didn't mention anything christian.... :frown:

Did anyone else do the virtue ethics question, how did you tackle it?

Reply 978

Forever a Gnome

Original post by Oxmatt

Original post by Noodlzzz

I managed to sneak in a bit of Heidegger and Kierkegaard, I was quite proud :P

I assume your doing philosophy at uni by your sig?

All these names make me feel like I've reeaally not written enough, sehr mediocre, especially since I realise I could've added them :frown:

Reply 979

Macroverse

I did the Soul
- Descartes, prinicple properties etc.
- Interection and epiphenomenalism etc.
- Aristotle argued was a soul and linked with the wax and stamp
- (Minor challenge by Anthony Kenny that Aristotle can support both dualism and monism)
- John Hick, if there's a soul like Aristotle suggested not distinct but resurrected in the body.
- Brian Davies, numerically or qualiatively similiar replica. Moaned about me marrying Mr Universe 2011, linked this back to Descartes interaction to argue there was a lot of lose ends
- Richard Dawkins, the soul is a myth, humans are survival machines for genes
- J P Sartre and Martin Heidegar to support Dawkins from a psychological POV
- Plato's Symposium and argument that the soul was the source of personal identity
Conc: Argued all arguments have weaknesses but that the soul is most likely distinct.

Then after a lot of dithering between the religious language and omniscience I did the omniscience because that was a lot more direct in what you had to talk about.
- Explained the issue of freewill and God's knowlege with references to Kant, John Locke.
- Boethius' answer in his consolation, God's not knowledge isn't uncertain but from a theocentric POV.
- Anthony Kenny to criticise, but referenced to Paul Helm somehow
- Swinburne God is sempiternal, link to omnipotent fallacy, Hick's epistemic distance, Peter Vardy's peasant girl,
- Swinburne challenge that Boethius is close to ancient Greek God.
- Problem of how does God know and what with Aquinas
Conc: Semiternal (everlasting God) is better than the eternal answer.

The philosophy went better than the ethics but I'm not sure whether I did enough in the evaluation to get an A :frown:

Emotivism
- Explained Ayer, linked to Vienna Circle
- James Rachels to challenge through it being reductionist, C L Stevenson as a firmer basis, G J Warnock argued that we don't listen to public pressure
- Ethical naturalism can't provide the firmer basis
- G E More, intuition means that it is more that emotion, H A Prichard argued it was enough to be called 'knowledge'
- Argued that the deontological perspective of W D Ross and R M Hare was better, firmer basis, allowed for discussion. Hare in particular with his distinction from non-moral and moral.
Conc: ethical statements were more than emotion.

The environment
- James' Lovelock
- Little help as he said nothing direct
- Arne Naess and Sessions said a lot more direct things
- Michael La Bossiere as the conservation ethics to challenge the principle of biodiversity and therefore argue that it was of little help
- Argue for a relook at the religious ethics, the concept of dominion has been wrongly interpreted, placed it into context. Jesus and God with intrinsic worth to the planet, use this as a maxim.
Conc: secular ethics have a lot more flaws than religious ethics.
(Didn't use anthropocentric though, very annoyed and I didn't use many examples of actions)