Religion and Ethics | Edexcel A-Level Religious Studies (9RS0)
Religion and Ethics
- 169 questions
- 14 subtopics
- Paper 2: Religion and Ethics
- Paper 2
Paper 2.
The major normative theories from utilitarianism to virtue ethics, what moral language is doing when it is used, and how the theories bear on war, sexual ethics, equality, the environment and medical decisions at the beginning and end of life.
Sample questions from Religion and Ethics
Answer each one closed book first, then open the answer.
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Environmental Ethics
Define sustainability and explain why it is an ethical idea and not just an economic one.
Show the answer
Sustainability is meeting present needs without destroying the capacity of future generations to meet theirs. It is ethical because it asks whether people who do not yet exist can make claims on us, and whether present consumption can be justified against future cost. -
Equality
Name some events that mark progress on racial equality.
Show the answer
The Montgomery bus boycott of 1955 to 1956, the March on Washington in 1963, the US Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965, the British Race Relations Acts of 1965, 1968 and 1976, the end of apartheid and Mandela's election in 1994, and the Macpherson report of 1999 into institutional racism. -
Situation Ethics
Where does situationism sit between legalism and antinomianism?
Show the answer
Legalism arrives with rules already fixed and applies them; antinomianism arrives with nothing at all and improvises. Fletcher's situationism arrives with the tradition's rules as illuminators, informed guides that can be set aside when love requires, but takes only agape as binding. -
Natural Moral Law
How does Aquinas organise law?
Show the answer
Eternal law is God's own wisdom ordering all things, known fully only to God. Divine law is the part revealed in scripture. Natural law is the rational creature's participation in eternal law, worked out by reason. Human law is the positive law of states, which is only genuinely law when it derives from natural law. -
War and Peace
What rules govern conduct in war under jus in bello?
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Discrimination, meaning combatants may be targeted and non-combatants may not; and proportionality of means, so no more force than the military objective requires. Prohibitions on rape, torture, attacking the wounded and using certain weapons follow, and are codified in the Geneva Conventions. -
Meta-ethics and Ethical Language
Explain the difference between cognitivist and non-cognitivist accounts of moral language.
Show the answer
Cognitivists hold that a moral statement expresses a belief about how things are, so it can be true or false. Non-cognitivists hold that it expresses something else, an attitude, feeling or command, so it is not the sort of thing that can be true or false at all, however grammatically it resembles a factual claim. -
Religion and Morality
What are the three basic positions on how religion and morality are related?
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Dependence, that morality derives from God and could not stand without divine authority. Independence, that morality has its own foundation in reason, sympathy or social life, and religion at most reinforces it. And a third position holding that they conflict, so religious commitment actually distorts moral judgement. -
Comparing Kant and Aristotle
How does each thinker treat the emotions in moral life?
Show the answer
Kant holds that acting from inclination gives an act no moral worth, while Aristotle holds that the virtuous person feels the right emotion at the right time.
The 14 subtopics
One subtopic is one session. Work down the list.
| Subtopic | What it covers | Questions |
|---|---|---|
| Environmental Ethics | Recall questions on stewardship and conservation, religious and secular positions, animal welfare, sustainability, waste and climate change, Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis, Næss's deep ecology, and how far law, attitudes and religious perspectives shape the debate. | 12 |
| Equality | Recall questions on religious and secular grounds for equality, the gender debate, racial equality and the models of disability, Martin Luther King and Joni Eareckson Tada as religious campaigners, and how far law changes social attitudes. | 10 |
| Utilitarianism | Recall questions on Bentham's hedonic calculus, Mill's higher and lower pleasures, act and rule forms, and the standard objections. | 15 |
| Situation Ethics | Recall questions on the new morality, agape and situationism between legalism and antinomianism, Fletcher's four working principles and six propositions, gospel examples, Robinson's contribution, Barclay's assessment, and the theory's strengths and weaknesses. | 11 |
| Natural Moral Law | Recall questions on absolutism and legalism, the classical and biblical roots, Aquinas's types of law and the synderesis rule, the primary and secondary precepts, double effect, Hoose's proportionalism, and the case for and against the theory. | 11 |
| War and Peace | Recall questions on the pacifist and just war traditions, jus ad bellum, jus in bello and jus post bellum, Augustine and Aquinas, a contemporary conflict tested against the criteria, nuclear weapons, the forms of pacifism and peace movements. | 13 |
| Sexual Ethics | Recall questions on Christian diversity and sacred texts, sex before marriage, promiscuity and adultery, same-sex relationships, contraception, secular approaches, Vardy and Dominian, and whether religious teaching and ethical theory still help. | 14 |
| Meta-ethics and Ethical Language | Recall questions on cognitivism and non-cognitivism, realism, ethical naturalism, Moore's naturalistic fallacy and open question argument, Hume's is-ought gap, intuitionism, prescriptivism, Ayer's emotivism and Stevenson's development of it. | 13 |
| Religion and Morality | Recall questions on autonomy, theonomy and heteronomy, divine command ethics and the Euthyphro dilemma, Dawkins and Sharpe on morality without God, the moral arguments for and against God, religious terror, and biblical parenting. | 11 |
| Kantian Deontology | Recall questions on the influences on Kant, the good will and acting from duty, hypothetical and categorical imperatives and their formulations, the main criticisms, Ross's prima facie duties, Nagel's contribution, and duty-based ethics today. | 12 |
| Aristotelian Virtue Ethics | Recall questions on eudaimonia and the function argument, intellectual and moral virtues, the golden mean and phronesis, role models and vices, the twentieth-century revival, and the arguments of Foot and MacIntyre. | 12 |
| Comparing Kant and Aristotle | Recall questions on duty against character, the place of emotion, how each grounds moral authority, and where each is strongest. | 12 |
| Medical Ethics: the Beginning of Life | Recall questions on the moral status of the embryo, sanctity and quality of life, embryo research, pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, stem cells and cord blood, IVF, abortion and British law, and double effect at the beginning of life. | 11 |
| Medical Ethics: the End of Life | Recall questions on the forms of euthanasia, acts and omissions, double effect, British legal cases, palliative care, religious and secular arguments on assisted dying, personhood, and the views of Singer, Glover and Wilcockson. | 12 |
How the guide is worked
Answering a question from memory stores it far better than reading the answer again. The guide runs that as a fixed procedure on one subtopic at a time, about twenty minutes a session.
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Step 1 · Closed book
Cover the answers. Work through one subtopic and write down what you can. Leave blanks where you have nothing.
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Step 2 · Open book
Go back to the top. Read each printed answer and write it out in full, including the ones you had right.
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Step 3 · Closed book again
Same questions, same order, from memory. The gap between pass one and pass three is the session result.
Read the full method, the return schedule and the research behind it.
Nearby topics
Edexcel A-Level Religious Studies Active Recall Guide
Every topic, not just this one. 1,694 questions with their answers.