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

very much thanks
ok il try not to dwell on it and hope for the best...in your opinion do you think that question can relate to conscience?

Hi,
Im such an idiot!
i quickly rushed into the free will question (on the ethics paper) - critically access we are responsinble for our own evil actions- and did an essay on CONSCIENCE based on it.
I related the essay to the question but i did it on conscience!
Does anyone think i will still get any marks on it or if thats ok???

very much thanks
ok il try not to dwell on it and hope for the best...in your opinion do you think that question can relate to conscience?

This isn't true, sadly. If you look at the mark scheme, marks are not necessarily given for every fact you write down. They give you a mark out of 35 based on the getting relevant facts, giving relevant information and being critical. In a language essay you could write the meanings of 35 key words and their meanings, or 35 philosophers and their idea, but unless it directly relates to the question you get no marks.
I thought the same as you until recently when I spoke to an examiner about it. The key to high marks is making your answer relevant

They should do, it's about answering the question with relevant material.
I read the examiners report for January 2011, there was a free will question on social conditioning, some candidates responded from the view point of other topics and still did well. Here's a quote:
"Candidates responded to the question using different approaches. Some used conscience, with a reasonable degree of success, whilst others used meta-ethical theories. Those who focused on answering the question were successful whatever approach they took."

I hope this is encouraging

what happens if for the free will question, due to exam stress and lack of time, i've wrote a theory and explained in like hard determinism and clearly know this shows we can't have moral responsibility for our evil actions, but in my one line conclusion at the end just to spell it out to the examiner, (i always get really ocdish that i really have to make it clear which way my argument is going, in relation of the question :P ) i've wrote out something like 'hard determinism argues in favour/against the original statment' but i've used 'in favour' by accident thinking the question says we don't have moral responsibility for our evil actions, or vice versa by accident- purely down to nerves and a lack of time, but that early in the paragraph i have made reference to the fact we don't have moral responsibilty for our actions due to free will being illusory, will i get no marks, as it undermines the quality of the rest of my argument etc. ? i hope this makes sense i'm just really worried, i need a c at least in order to keep my a !

What will happen is that the examiner will read your entire essay. If you have the theories correctly written down, then your answer will be in the top band of "a good understanding with relevant material." Your conclusion isn't a big part of the essay anyway and lots of people just use it to re-put what they have already written. The examiner will know what you mean, but will not give you or take away marks - the examiner will base your total mark on how well the entire essay went.

Basically, you'll be fine.

Well that sounds great... I did get an A for AS when I thought it went really badly but you can never really tell with exams :/

Good luck for the rest of your exams

This was my conscience essay for the question on free will - critically access that we are responsible for our own evil actions-
WOULD THIS BE OK? I basicly did this essay in the exam but related a tiny bit more to the question..is my material here relevant enough??

Conscience is a moral faculty or feeling prompting us to see that certain actions are morally right or wrong. We consider it to be a reliable guide but it lacks consistency and can lead people to perform terrible actions. Many religious thinkers have described conscience as a vehicle for divine revelation, whilst many secular thinkers have seen it merely as a reflection of the values of society: a set of values and principles that affect cultural and aesthetic awareness. In order to defend the proposition of the question of whether we are responsible for our own evil actions, it is necessary to examine the religious views from scholars such as, Aquinas, Butler and Newman. However, other scholars who hold the secular approach such as Freud, Piaget and Fromm argue the statement, that conscience is not responsible for our evil actions. Therefore, in order to answer the question it is necessary to examine how each scholar argues for the need or not to obey conscience and come to a conclusion which brings a valid judgment of the question.

Religious views rely on an intuitionist approach that conscience is innate and comes from God. Despite disagreements as to its definition, many thinkers have acknowledged the dominance of conscience in moral decisions making. St Paul suggested that every human possessed on innate sense of right and wrong as a result of their possessing a conscience.
The church has always placed an emphasis on informing conscience so that its judgements are in line with the teaching of the church bible. Theologians have disagreed over its place in the process of reaching a moral decision. Some have argued that conscience should play a secondary role, whilst others have argued that its role should be central. Many acknowledge the personal nature of conscience and demand respect for its dictates, even when they go against teaching of the church and scriptures and therefore should always be obeyed. However, if you don’t believe in God, then following/obeying your conscience as the voice of God is redundant.

Thomas Aquinas observed conscience as a device or ability for differentiating between right an wrong; an act of applying ones awareness of good and evil, rather than believing conscience to be innate. It is understood to be the product of the power of reason that derives from experience and instruction in which human beings tend towards the good and steer away from evil. This is known as the synderesis rule. An example of the synderesis rule would be a person finding some chocolate cake; the apparent good would to be eat as much cake as one desire, however, the real good would be to think about ones health and only having abit, if any. To a certain extent, rather than being a voice that instructs one thing or another, conscience is ‘reason making right decisions’. Therefore to act against conscience is to be guided by something that lies outside our God given nature. The second element of formulating moral decisions is the theory of conscientia which makes the distinction between right and wrong along with making moral decisions. “Aquinas does use the word conscientia, but for him it is not a faculty of power which we exercise, nor a disposition of any power, nor an innate moral code, but simply a judgement.

However, Aquinas belief that sometimes conscience is misinformed or misled could explain the disparity in different peoples conscience. Aquinas approach provides us with the tools to make decisions, but it doesn’t give us a fool proof answer as to what to do. His reliance on reasoning is good, especially the distinction between the conscientious and syderesis, however he does say that the closer we are to a situation the more we need to enquire and vary our decisions or actions. He does not believe that the conscience will give us a definitive answer but will, by the use of conscientia and synderesis, lead us towards the correct moral path.

Joseph Butler similar to Aquinas also perceived conscience to be the ultimate moral decision maker. Butler understood that one has a God given ability to reason. He identified conscience as the, “candle of the lord” and maintained that conscience is an element of human nature that directs one towards the moral integration of the self. “It essential to Butlers system that it to be recognised that conscience is the voice of God, ‘The candle of the Lord’; A02 Arguing against the philosophy of self indulgence, Butler suggests that human beings are influenced by two basic principles, self love and benevolence. Conscience guides one towards centering on the happiness or significance of others and away from focusing on the self. Alistair Macintyre has highlighted the circularity of Butlers argument about the nature of conscience. According to Butler, we ought to perform actions that satisfy out natures as rational and moral beings, but out natures as rational and moral beings are defined by our adherence to certain principles.

Lastly, Cardinal Newman came up with the view that conscience is implanted by human beings who are influenced by G-d. However, he also maintained that conscience is cultivated by ones upbringing and society based on Christian understanding. For Newman, who is mostly associated with the phrase, “I toast the pope, but I toast conscience first” tends to stress that conscience resembles an inner voice that steers ones actions and generates feelings of guilt and disgrace. He obtains the view that conscience is the voice of God within oneself, the point at which human beings acknowledge the Divine in daily life. From his understanding of conscience, Newman deduces the existence of G-d; for that reason it allows human beings to follow their conscience since G-d is always scrutinising ones moral decisions and actions.

However, Butler and Newman theory have come under criticism. It is argued that if Gods voice is everyone’s conscience, then how can we reconcile this with the different moral beliefs and convictions of people all over the world? Butler and Newman gave complete authority to conscience, so therefore their theories are somewhat lacking in substance when faced with this criticism. In many ways the religious approach is quite narrow-minded as it assumes the existence of and a belief in G-d. Atheists and humanists are content to accept that it is due to psychological development or to genetic determinism of evolutionary history. A02

On the other hand, the secular approaches believe that conscience is not the voice of G-d but something learned or acquired and not always be obeyed. Freud adopted a secular approach to morality, claiming that conscience has nothing whatsoever to do with the existence of G-d and revelation. For Freud he believed that the human personality consisted of three areas. Firstly the superego which is the part that is most linked with the feeling of guilt that conscience brings. Secondly, the ego, the conscience self, the part seen by the outside world. Thirdly, the id, the unconscious self, the part that of the mind containing basic drives and repressed memories. It is immoral and had no concerns about right and wrong only concerned with itself. He saw the conscience as part of the unconscious mind, and believed that it arose as a result of bad experiences early in life, as well as disapproval from parents and society. For Freud conscience cannot be the voice of G-d because of the different opinions on ethical issues as it is the superego of the mind developed during the stages of childhood.

Moreover, Jean Piaget believed that before the age of ten children take their morality from their parents/carers which is known as heteronymous morality, but after this stage their own moral reasoning becomes more prominent due to increasing awareness of morality and society around them, which is known as autonomous morality.
Piaget believed that the most adults use a mixture of these two approaches. When a person becomes fewer dependants on the views and opinions of others they move from the heteronymous to the autonomous level. The implications of Piaget moral development theory were explored by Lawrence Kohlberg. He argued that moral development of an individual is determined by the sophistication of their reasoning, not their age or necessarily the conclusions they came to. Some people many never reach the high levels of complexity.

Finally, Erich Fromm held that we have the authoritarian conscience and the humanistic conscience. Fromm believed that all humans are influenced by external authorities such as teachers and parents which apply rules and punishments for breaking them. These are internalised by the individual. A guilty conscience is a result of displeasing the authority which makes us more obedient to the authority. However, Fromm’s view changed over time. He saw the humanistic conscience as being much healthier at is assesses and evaluates our behaviour. We use it to judge how successful we are as people. We use our own discoveries in life and the teachings and examples of others to give us personal integrity and moral honesty. This is the opposite to the slavish obedience and conformity of the authoritarian approach.

The secular approaches also seem to come under criticisms. Much of Freud’s work has been criticised especially the Oedipus complex as his research was based on small samples and some psychologists argue that it is too simplistic. Similarly, even though Piaget based his ideas on psychological findings, psychologists also argue that his findings were based on flawed data because his experiments failed to take various factors into account. The secular approaches also seem to fail in the way they that they explain where conscience might come from and how it influences decisions but they don’t provide an accurate method of understanding of what is the correct approach.

To conclude, there is no single theory of conscience, so in many ways each different theory criticises at least some aspects of other theories. As, you can see Aquinas, Butler and Newman all agree that conscience comes from God and should have ultimate authority over what we do. Aquinas and Butler see reason as an essential part of this but

so what mark/grade do you reckon that essay would get for the critically access that we are responsible for our own evil actions?

so what mark/grade do you reckon that essay would get for the critically access that we are responsible for our own evil actions?

Grade boundaries are the worst yet D:

Did anyone think the philosophy results were insane? Almost everyone in my class got at least two grades below what was expected in that exam...yet everyone thought it was an absolute ideal paper!

Yes completly agree! everyone in my class got A's and B's n ethics and C's and D's in Philosophy!

Did anyone think the philosophy results were insane? Almost everyone in my class got at least two grades below what was expected in that exam...yet everyone thought it was an absolute ideal paper!