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EnglandReligious Studies

Ethical Thought and Deontology (Component 3)

6 dot points across 6 inquiry questions. Click any dot point for a focused answer with worked past exam questions where available.

Is conscience the voice of God or of reason, or merely the internalised voice of authority and society, and which account best explains moral guilt?

Component 3 conscience: Aquinas's rational account (synderesis and conscientia) against the psychological accounts of Freud (the super-ego) and Fromm (authoritarian and humanistic conscience), with strengths and weaknesses.
An Eduqas Component 3 (Religion and Ethics) guide to conscience. Covers Aquinas's rational account (synderesis and conscientia, and the mistaken conscience), Freud's psychological account (the super-ego and guilt), and Fromm's authoritarian and humanistic conscience, with the strengths and weaknesses the exam asks you to evaluate.
16 min answer →

Is an action right because God commands it, or does God command it because it is right, and can morality depend on the will of God?

Component 3 divine command theory: the claim that morality depends on God's commands, the Euthyphro dilemma, and the strengths and weaknesses of grounding ethics in the will of God.
An Eduqas Component 3 (Religion and Ethics) guide to divine command theory. Covers the claim that morality is grounded in God's commands, the Euthyphro dilemma (is an act good because God commands it, or commanded because it is good), modified divine command theory, and the strengths and weaknesses the exam asks you to evaluate.
16 min answer →

Does Aquinas's natural law give a sound, reason-based moral theory, or do its fixed precepts and reliance on a human telos make it too rigid for modern ethical issues?

Component 3 Aquinas's natural law: the four tiers of law, the primary and secondary precepts, real and apparent goods, the doctrine of double effect, and its application to issues of life and death, with strengths and weaknesses.
An Eduqas Component 3 (Religion and Ethics) guide to Aquinas's natural law. Covers the four tiers of law (eternal, divine, natural, human), the primary and secondary precepts, real and apparent goods, the four cardinal and three theological virtues, the doctrine of double effect, and its application to abortion and euthanasia, with the strengths and weaknesses the exam asks you to evaluate.
17 min answer →

Does Hoose's proportionalism rescue natural law by allowing a proportionate reason to override a moral rule, or does it collapse into consequentialism?

Component 3 Hoose's proportionalism: the distinction between moral and pre-moral (ontic) goods and evils, the idea of a proportionate reason, its relation to natural law, and its application to life and death, with strengths and weaknesses.
An Eduqas Component 3 (Religion and Ethics) guide to Bernard Hoose's proportionalism. Covers the distinction between moral and pre-moral (ontic) goods and evils, the principle that there must be a proportionate reason to permit a pre-moral evil, its relation to natural law, and the charge that it collapses into consequentialism, with the evaluation the exam rewards.
16 min answer →

Does morality depend on religion, is it independent of it, or are religion and ethics so connected that one cannot be understood without the other?

Component 3 the relationship between religion and morality: the autonomy, heteronomy and theonomy of ethics, whether morality needs God, and the views of Kant, Aquinas and secular critics, with strengths and weaknesses.
An Eduqas Component 3 (Religion and Ethics) guide to the relationship between religion and morality. Covers the autonomy, heteronomy and theonomy of ethics, whether morality depends on God, the Euthyphro problem, Kant's postulate of God, and secular accounts of morality, with the strengths and weaknesses the exam asks you to evaluate.
16 min answer →

Is the good life a matter of developing virtuous character and practical wisdom, as Aristotle argues, or does virtue theory fail to tell us what to do?

Component 3 virtue theory: Aristotle's account of eudaimonia, the doctrine of the mean, moral and intellectual virtues, and the role of practical wisdom, with strengths and weaknesses.
An Eduqas Component 3 (Religion and Ethics) guide to Aristotle's virtue theory. Covers eudaimonia as the final end, the function argument, the doctrine of the mean, moral and intellectual virtues, practical wisdom (phronesis) and habituation, and the strengths and weaknesses the exam asks you to evaluate.
16 min answer →