April 2020

Course Notes on Sexual Ethics for Edexcel students – Augustine on lust

The seven deadly sins are vices that are condemned in Christian teaching, although they do not appear explicitly in the Bible. According to the standard list, they are pride, greed, envy, gluttony, wrath, sloth and lust. Obviously when it comes to sexual ethics, lust tends to get proscribed because it can lead to other sins getting committed e.g. adultery. […]

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Course Notes for Edexcel students : Introduction to Sexual Ethics

This introduction should help you to get clearer about your own views about sexual morality in terms of which actions you think are morally right and which are morally wrong. So it’s about finding out where our own boundaries are. Interestingly, a couple of philosophers who have contributed a lot to the debate about sexual

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Anthology Extract Commentary : Edexcel Paper 2 Extract 4 – Medical Ethics

Taken from: Issues of Life and Death by Michael Wilcockson (Hodder, 1999), Chapter 4, Euthanasia and Doctors’ Ethics, pp.56–69. NOTE: Copyright issues may come into play at this point. So what you will find below are the FIRST and LAST couple of sentences of the section that is commented on followed by the commentary itself

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Course notes for Edexcel students on Moral Luck/Thomas Nagel

From the Edexcel syllabus for Paper 2: A comparison of the work of Immanuel Kant and Aristotle with regard to Deontology and Virtue Ethics respectively. (2) Kant I – Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, Text, second section, pp. 29–53 (Yale University Press, 2002) ISBN 9780300094879 With reference to the ideas of W D Ross

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Anthology Extract Commentary : Edexcel Paper 2 Extract 3: Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics, Book II, (350 BCE)

NOTE: This commentary (combined with the one on Kant) also covers the following aspect of the Edexcel syllabus: A comparison of the work of Immanuel Kant and Aristotle with regard to Deontology and Virtue Ethics respectively. NOTE: Copyright issues may come into play at this point. So what you will find below are the FIRST

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Anthology Extract Commentary : Edexcel Paper 2 Extract 2: Immanuel Kant, Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals (1785).

Taken from: Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, translated by Allen W Wood (Yale University Press edition, 2002), Text, second section, pp 29–47. NOTE: This commentary (combined with the one on Aristotle) also covers the following aspect of the Edexcel syllabus: A comparison of the work of Immanuel Kant and Aristotle with regard to Deontology

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Anthology Extract Commentary : Edexcel Extract 2: Alister McGrath, ‘Deluded about God? (2007) Taken from: The Dawkins Delusion by A. McGrath (London: SPCK, 2007), Chapter 1, Deluded About God? pp.1-13.

NOTE 1: THIS ANTHOLOGY EXTRACT RELATES TO YOUR 4B CHRISTIANITY PAPER. THIS MEANS THAT YOU COULD BE ASKED TO COMMENT ON A SECTION FROM IT IN YOUR CHRISTIANITY EXAMINATION. HOWEVER, THE CONTENT ALSO RELATES TO SECTION 5.1 OF YOUR PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION SYLLABUS (‘CRITIQUES OF RELIGIOUS BELIEF’), ESPECIALLY THE DISCUSSION ABOUT ‘THE EXTREME IMPROBABILITY OF

Anthology Extract Commentary : Edexcel Extract 2: Alister McGrath, ‘Deluded about God? (2007) Taken from: The Dawkins Delusion by A. McGrath (London: SPCK, 2007), Chapter 1, Deluded About God? pp.1-13. Read More »

Course Notes for students of Edexcel Paper 1 – Religious Belief : The views of Merold Westphal in a nutshell

This should hopefully save you from having to wade through the 20 page summary in one of the older Edexcel textbooks In an important survey article on developments in philosophical theology and the philosophy of religion, Merold Westphal notes how different philosophers have tried to distinguish the ‘kernel’ or essence of religion from the ‘husk’

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