Paul Whicker

JUST WAR THEORY, ISLAMIC TEACHING ABOUT WAR AND PEACEMAKING, TERRORISM, AND THE PALESTINE-ISRAEL CONFLICT: A REVIEW OF STEPHEN LAW (ed.) ISRAEL, PALESTINE AND TERROR.

NOTE: This blog entry is aimed at students and teachers who may be interested in applying Just War Theory to the Palestine-Israel conflict (see Paper 2 topic 3.1). It also looks at whether terrorism is morally justifiable, and so is of relevance to discussions about religion and terror that may arise in the context of […]

JUST WAR THEORY, ISLAMIC TEACHING ABOUT WAR AND PEACEMAKING, TERRORISM, AND THE PALESTINE-ISRAEL CONFLICT: A REVIEW OF STEPHEN LAW (ed.) ISRAEL, PALESTINE AND TERROR. Read More »

What should they be reading? Which books are worth recommending to students of Philosophy and Religious Studies?

The following is a rather personal list of publications that I would recommend to sixth-formers who wish to expand their horizons a little by engaging in some supplementary reading over and above their course textbooks. Teachers who are inclined to read around the subject may enjoy some of them too. Note that I am restricting

What should they be reading? Which books are worth recommending to students of Philosophy and Religious Studies? Read More »

Revision tests and an exemplar answer for the OCR Syllabus on Business Ethics

NOTE: Occasionally, new information is introduced in some of the questions. Of course, that might mean that a guess is required, but there is then every chance of the correct answer then being more readily recalled. The answers to the questions can be found towards the end of this blog post. Macro-economic theories (Fill in

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Extension material for students of the OCR syllabus on Business Ethics: Kwasi Kwarteng’s 2022 ‘Trickle-Down’ Mini-Budget, a recommendation for further reading, and reviews of Ronald E. Purser’s McMindfulness: How Mindfulness Became The New Capitalist Spirituality, and Byung-Chul Han: Capitalism and the Death Drive.

THIS POST RELATES TO THE ISSUE OF ‘WHETHER OR NOT HUMAN BEINGS CAN FLOURISH IN THE CONTEXT OF CAPITALISM AND CONSUMERISM’. ‘Trickle-Down’ Economics Neoliberalism, the predominant global form of modern capitalism, is one that – rather like Covid-19 – has given rise to a number of variants, namely, Thatcherism, Bill Clinton’s Market Globalism (which basically

Extension material for students of the OCR syllabus on Business Ethics: Kwasi Kwarteng’s 2022 ‘Trickle-Down’ Mini-Budget, a recommendation for further reading, and reviews of Ronald E. Purser’s McMindfulness: How Mindfulness Became The New Capitalist Spirituality, and Byung-Chul Han: Capitalism and the Death Drive. Read More »

Extension Material on Environmental Issues for students of the Edexcel syllabus: Kohei Saito – Marx in the Anthropocene.

From the syllabus for Religion and Ethics (Paper 2): 1.1 Environmental issues a) Concepts of stewardship and conservation from the point of view of at least one religion and at least one secular ethical perspective; animal welfare and protection, sustainability, waste management and climate change.  b) Strengths and weaknesses of significant areas of disagreement and

Extension Material on Environmental Issues for students of the Edexcel syllabus: Kohei Saito – Marx in the Anthropocene. Read More »

Course Notes for students of the OCR syllabus on Business Ethics as part of the Religion and Ethics Component

This blog entry is a one of several that are of relevance to the OCR syllabus for Business Ethics. The site itself is structured around the current Edexcel course. Business Ethics does not feature on that course. However, an attempt has been made here to ‘kill two birds with one stone’, insofar as some of

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Book Review/Summer Reading 2 Martha Nussbaum – Not for Profit : Why Democracy Needs the Humanities

The American philosopher Martha Nussbaum may already be familiar to some readers of this blog, as Greek philosophy is one area of particular academic interest for her, and she has made a significant contribution to the field of modern virtue ethics. Specifically, she interprets Aristotle’s virtues as absolutes, and argues that justice, temperance etc. are

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BOOK REVIEW/SUMMER READING Brad Warner – The Other Side of Nothing : The Zen Ethics of Time, Space and Being

NOTE: This blog entry is aimed more at teachers than students, as its purpose is to introduce a number of fairly recent texts that overlap with the territory of Religious Studies and Philosophy. Pretty much all the titles referenced here come highly recommended, including Brad Warner’s other publications, and especially Megan Phelps-Roper’s book Unfollow :

BOOK REVIEW/SUMMER READING Brad Warner – The Other Side of Nothing : The Zen Ethics of Time, Space and Being Read More »

Revision test for the Edexcel syllabus on Sexual Ethics

THESE QUESTIONS ARE BASED ON THE COURSE NOTES FOR THE ABOVE TOPIC THAT CAN BE FOUND HERE, HERE, AND HERE. THE SECTION ON EMBRYOLOGICAL RESEARCH, IVF, AND PRE-IMPLANTATION GENETIC DIAGNOSIS THAT IS DISCUSSED HERE IS ALSO OF RELEVANCE WITH RESPECT TO CHILDLESSNESS. THIS TEST (AND MANY OF THE OTHERS ON THIS SITE) MAY ALSO BE OF

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