AQA Philosophy A2 June 2013

Original post by Fikri Gusrizal

I just mentioned Locke's Hobbes' and Rousseau's concept of the state of nature plus Anarchists' and Feminists' criticism of political authority, along with Marxists'.

woo thank god me too, i wasn't 100% sure whether I went about it in the right way. Although I didn't do Rousseau and did Burke instead.

Reply 262

Original post by euseangel

I wrote about different types of political athority then i wrote stuff on hobbes and marx, need to be an a community and have set moral values, and marxism and communism :smile:

oh cool same-ish :-) was wondering if i went about it in the right way.. couldn't believe the question as it was very similar to last years in that it included all the state theories.

Reply 263

Fikri Gusrizal

Original post by millie-rose

woo thank god me too, i wasn't 100% sure whether I went about it in the right way. Although I didn't do Rousseau and did Burke instead.

Ah i shouldve done Burke as well :frown:

i mentioned conservatives in general so i guess ill be fine

Reply 264

Worst exam I've ever taken. For Political Philosophy I didn't know that 'competing principles of human nature' was a specific spec point. I saw it as an elaboration or the purpose of different ideologies which meant I knew no Marx, no Rousseau, no Hobbes. I made essay plans for every single other point and our teacher didn't teach us Nation States. I'll certainly be lowering the grade boundaries for you all

Reply 265

Lingo-Flamingo

Original post by euseangel

I wrote about different types of political athority then i wrote stuff on hobbes and marx, need to be an a community and have set moral values, and marxism and communism :smile:

Ooh, that sounds good! I talked about traditional conservatism first of all, since I thought that was the ideology that seemed to agree with the quote the most, and discussed how it adopts a Hobbesian view of the State of Nature, the idea of the state as an organic entity, the need to maintain social morality, etc. Then I moved on to classical liberalism, and its ideas about human nature as progressive, and the idea that the state should be minimal because of this, with reference to Mill, and I had a tiny bit of debate between Mill and Devlin about legislations regarding alcohol. My next paragraph was on Marxism, and how ultimately the state is not needed, there is no fixed human nature - what traditional conservatives believe to be examples of the selfishness of human nature is just a reflection of the capitalist system and the competition generated by the free market, etc., and then I finished with anarchism, since that seemed to disagree with the quotation the most on both accounts. I didn't include a lot of debate or illustrations though, so AQA probably won't be too impressed! :tongue:

Reply 266

their choices of questions were very peculiar i thought, for political they create questions from the same subsections as last year so i thought they were very unlikely to come up. On moral the questions were worded very wierdly especially the one asking you to choose a theory and apply a practical problem

Reply 267

Original post by Fikri Gusrizal

Ah i shouldve done Burke as well :frown:

i mentioned conservatives in general so i guess ill be fine

i'm suure you'll be fine, :smile:

I didn't even have time to go into Marxism! With the mark scheme for Philosophy though, it's better to have in-depth evaluation of a couple of theories rather than a general narrative of all of them :smile:

Reply 268

Original post by euseangel

Agreed - I think AQA are trying to stop people predicting exam questions, hence why they did the exact same topics as last year but different questions.

I also take AQA Politics and for the past years the questions have taken the same format/structure, and suddenly this year they completely changed!

Reply 269

Original post by lisa_

In a way it is an elaboration of different ideologies, you might be ok! What did you talk about?

Reply 270

Original post by millie-rose

In a way it is an elaboration of different ideologies, you might be ok! What did you talk about?

You're very sweet but sadly I completed misunderstood the point :frown:

I talked about the most random collection of things- Liberalism (relevant) Conservatism (A little relevant) Positive and negative freedom (not really relevant) and them some other really random things haha Ring of Gyges? Nozick briefly, utilitarianism?! Not quite sure how that ended up in there...

Reply 271

Original post by lisa_

You're very sweet but sadly I completed misunderstood the point :frown:

it was difficult to figure out what they actually wanted from you, i didn't mention anything about liberalism and conservatism, in hindsight would have been sensible :\

Reply 272

Original post by euseangel

it was difficult to figure out what they actually wanted from you, i didn't mention anything about liberalism and conservatism, in hindsight would have been sensible :\

It was such a hideous question I couldn't believe it! I read my essay back and you'd never know that I was trying to get an A. Hopefully they'll see the tear stains on my paper and feel sorry for me haha oh goodness. What did you talk about? I certainly wouldn't compare yours to mine as I know that mine is certainly NOT what they are looking for.

Reply 273

elshiexx

Original post by moffintop

I did it was a weirdly worded q I thought! Oh no what do you think you did wrong??

I can't quite remeber the question but I ended up talking about the problem with psychological egoism, that of it not being able to account for sacrifices. But i was talking to one of the guys who did the same question as me (only 4 people our school do philosophy) and he said that it was problems in morality like abortion :angry:

etc ahhh so angry
but i'm glad that the first q went alright, just got to get as many marks on Hume in the 20th.
how did your's go?

Reply 274

kkkassikassi

Original post by Tier

Precisely, it was essentially a non specific meta-ethics question. If something doesn't exist it obviously can't be known, if it does it's potentially possible. You only had to argue for and against. I went the route of doing all 3 conceptions (God independent transcendental, natural/empirical, relational), then countering each but linking them. It went

-Plato's forms
-Third man argument
-Mill's utility
-Is ought gap
-Relational properties
-Primary and secondary qualities/Emotivism

Again, there are loads of routes you could have gone with this question. They were pretty vague.

i practically wrote about everything to be honest haha! mine went:

- transcendency (plato's forms and analogy with mathematics)
- naturalism (mill and aristotle)
- countered naturalism with moore's open-question argument
- found a criticism for that
- spoke about emotivism and how the verification principle renders itself meaningless, then moved onto stevenson
-is-ought gap
- cultural relativism

i wrote about 7/8 pages and i think it went really well, hopefully i didn't cram too much in because i literally wrote about EVERYTHING, but i argued about everything i mentioned so hopefully that's positive...

Reply 275

Original post by kkkassikassi

i answered that question really differently. I wrote more like it was possible to find moral knowedge through our conscience- we feel guilt and stuff and through ethical natrualism such as utilitarianism which allows a really easy method of finding moral truth. Then i wrote that it wasn't possible as the forms are unaccesable to the average person and that because there are so many different views finding the truth would be near impossible so even though theres moral truth its not possible to know it. I think i took a literal interpretation when it asked 'assess the claim that it is possible to have knowledge of moral truth' so i hope the way i interpreted it is also accepted or else that 50marks down the drain :\

Reply 276

Original post by lisa_

i said stuff like there should be a political authority because of hobbes dangerous account of human nature and because we natrually as humans live in a community and a gov will set morals which will aid social cohesion making them necessary. Then i wrote about, locke nicer view and marx oppresive view for why we don't need a gov. Yea im trying to get an A too but i think i might have interpreted the second question wrong

Reply 277

Original post by euseangel

That sounds like a brilliant essay to me! Which second question did you do?

Reply 278