Back to Scotland Religious, Moral & Philosophical Studies
Scotland · SQAQ&A
Religious, Moral & Philosophical StudiesQ&A by dot point
A short Q&A bank for every Scotland Religious, Moral & Philosophical Studies syllabus dot point. Each question and answer is drawn directly from our worked dot-point page, so you can scan key concepts before opening the long-form answer.
Course and Assessment
- The course structure: two areas of study (Philosophy of Religion mandatory plus one optional area), the 90-mark question paper of extended essays, the 50-mark dissertation, and the 140-mark total graded A to D.2Q&A pairs
- The skills of Advanced Higher RMPS - analysis, evaluation, sustained argument and independent research - and how the demand rises above Higher RMPS at SCQF level 7.2Q&A pairs
Medical Ethics
- Abortion: the moral status of the embryo and foetus (personhood and viability), the rights of the foetus against those of the woman, and religious, sanctity-of-life and quality-of-life arguments.3Q&A pairs
- Applying ethical theories to medical ethics: utilitarianism, Kantian ethics, the sanctity of life and quality of life, and the four principles of biomedical ethics (autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, justice).2Q&A pairs
- Euthanasia: active and passive, voluntary, non-voluntary and involuntary, the acts and omissions distinction and double effect, autonomy and the slippery slope, and sanctity-of-life and quality-of-life arguments.2Q&A pairs
- Organ transplantation: consent and the opt-in versus opt-out (presumed consent) debate, the definition of death, the allocation of scarce organs, the sale of organs, and religious and ethical arguments.2Q&A pairs
Philosophy of Religion
- The cosmological argument: the argument from causation and contingency (Aquinas's first three Ways, the Kalam version), and the main criticisms from Hume and Russell.2Q&A pairs
- The existence of God: theism, atheism and agnosticism, the burden of proof, and the distinction between a priori and a posteriori arguments that frames the cosmological, teleological and ontological arguments.2Q&A pairs
- The ontological argument: Anselm's a priori argument from the concept of the greatest possible being, Descartes's version, and the criticisms from Gaunilo and Kant (existence is not a predicate).2Q&A pairs
- The problem of evil and suffering: the logical and evidential problems, moral and natural evil, and the main theodicies (free will, the Augustinian and Irenaean responses) with their evaluation.2Q&A pairs
- The teleological (design) argument: Paley's watchmaker and the argument from order and purpose, the fine-tuning version, and criticisms from Hume and from evolution by natural selection.2Q&A pairs
Religious Experience
- Challenges to religious experience: psychological and physiological explanations (Freud, neuroscience), the problem of conflicting claims across religions, and verification and the privacy of experience.2Q&A pairs
- Religious experience and belief: the role of experience in grounding and sustaining faith, public versus private evidence, the value of the effects of experience, and whether experience can justify belief for others.2Q&A pairs
- The argument from religious experience: the inductive argument that experiences count as evidence for God, Swinburne's principles of credulity and testimony, and James's empirical case.2Q&A pairs
- The nature and types of religious experience: mystical, conversion, numinous, corporate and revelatory experiences, with key examples and the features (ineffability, noetic quality) that mark them.2Q&A pairs