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AS Religious Studies

 

Course Overview

The following units will be studied in this course:

Unit 1 (A) – Ethics

  • Utilitarianism
  • Situation Ethics
  • Religious teaching on the nature and value of human life
  • Abortion and euthanasia

Unit 2 (C) – Philosophy of Religion

  • The Cosmological argument
  • Religious experience
  • Psychology and religion

Exam board – AQA

Assessment – 100% exam

Key text books:

  • AQA Religious Studies AS and A2: Philosophy of Religion (AQA) by Anne Jordan, Neil Lockyer, and Edwin Tate.
  • AQA Religious Studies AS and A2: Ethics (AQA) by Anne Jordan, Neil Lockyer, and Edwin Tate.
  • The Puzzle of God – Peter Vardy.
  • The Puzzle of Ethics – Peter Vardy and Paul Grosch.

Course Content

Unit 1 (A) – Ethics

1. Utilitarianism

• The general principles of Utilitarianism: consequential or teleological thinking in contrast to deontological thinking

• Bentham’s Utilitarianism, Act Utilitarianism, the hedonic calculus

• Mill’s Utilitarianism, Rule Utilitarianism, quality over quantity

• The application of Bentham’s and Mill’s principles to one ethical issue of the candidate’s choice apart from abortion and euthanasia

Issues arising

• Strengths and weaknesses of the ethical systems of Bentham and Mill

• Which is more important – the ending of pain and suffering, or the increase of pleasure?

• How worthwhile is the pursuit of happiness, and is it all that people desire?

• How compatible is Utilitarianism with a religious approach to ethics?

2. Situation Ethics

• The general principles of Situation Ethics: the middle way between legalism and antinomianism; the idea of situation; conscience – what it is and what it is not; the emphasis on making moral decisions rather than following rules

• Fletcher’s six fundamental principles and the understanding of Christian love

• Fletcher’s four presumptions: pragmatism, contextual relativism, positivism, personalism

• The application of Situation Ethics to one ethical issue of the candidate’s choice apart from abortion and euthanasia

Issues arising

• Strengths and weaknesses of Situation Ethics as an ethical system

• Does Christian love allow people to do anything, depending on the context, and how far is it true that love should be the highest Christian law, overruling all others when necessary?

• How practical is Situation Ethics?

• How compatible is Situation Ethics with other Christian approaches to moral decision-making?

3. Religious teaching on the nature and value of human life

Candidates will be expected to have studied the teaching of one of the six major world religions, but, where appropriate, may refer to more than one religion in their answers.

• Nature of humanity and the human condition: what it means to be human

• Fatalism and free will: to what extent human beings are able to influence their own life and destiny

• Equality and difference: religious teaching about equality with particular reference to race, gender and disability

• The value of life: religious teachings about the value of life with particular reference to the quality of life, self-sacrifice and nonhuman life including the relative importance of human and nonhuman life

Issues arising

• How far must a religious view of life be fatalistic?

• How far can religion support the idea of equality?

• Human life must be given priority over non-human life and some human lives are more valuable than others – how far could religion accept this view?

4. Abortion and euthanasia

• Abortion: definitions for the start of human life, including: potentiality, conception, primitive streak, viability, birth

– The value of potential and real life

– Mother’s versus child’s life, double effect

– Ethical issues involved in legislation about abortion

• Euthanasia: active or passive

– Ethical issues involved in legislation about euthanasia; voluntary and involuntary; hospices and palliative care

– The right of humans to determine when to die

• Arguments for and against abortion and euthanasia with reference to religious and ethical teachings

Issues arising

• Does the definition of human life stop abortion being murder?

• Can abortion and euthanasia ever be said to be ‘good’?

• Do humans have a right to life, and a right to choose to die?

Unit 2 (C) – Philosophy of Religion

1. The Cosmological argument

Candidates may refer to any version of the argument but are expected to be familiar with:

• The cosmological argument as proposed by Aquinas with particular reference to: its basis in observation; the rejection of infinite regress; God as the first mover and first cause, and as the necessary being

• Differing understandings of the role of God in the argument: God as the temporal first cause; God as the sustainer of motion, causation and existence; God as the explanation of why there is something rather than nothing

• Key criticisms of the argument relating to: the possibility of infinite regress and the universe as a ‘brute fact’; the fallacy of composition; the identity of the necessary being as God and drawing a conclusion that goes beyond the evidence

Issues arising

• How far does the cosmological argument prove that God exists or show that it is reasonable to believe in God?

• The strengths and weaknesses of the argument

• The value of this argument for religious faith

2. Religious experience

• The variety of religious experience: credit will be given for reference to any relevant form of religious experience, but candidates are expected to be familiar with the main characteristics of visions, conversion and mystical experiences

• The argument from religious experience for the existence of God

• The challenges to religious experience from philosophy and science, including:

– for philosophy

(i) whether the finite could experience the infinite

(ii) problems of verifying religious experience

– for science

(i) natural explanations for religious experiences (e.g. drugs; Temporal lobe epilepsy)

(ii) simulating religious experiences (e.g. Persinger’s helmet)

Issues arising

• Can religious experience show that God probably exists?

• Is it necessary to have a religious experience in order to be able to understand what a religious experience is?

• How successful are the challenges to religious experience from philosophy and science?

3. Psychology and religion

Candidates will be credited for their understanding of any relevant psychological views of religion, and will be expected to be familiar with how religion has been understood by Freud and Jung:

Freud

Religion as a collective neurosis; as wish fulfilment and a reaction against helplessness; and as a response to the Oedipus complex and repressed guilt

Jung

Religion as an expression of the collective unconscious; the ‘god within’; the theory of archetypes: the shadow, the animus, anima and the Self and the quest for integration

Candidates should recognise why some of these views are seen to challenge religious belief and how religion has responded to this challenge.

Issues arising

• Has ‘God’ been explained away by psychology?

• The strengths and weaknesses of psychological views of religion

• What is the relationship between religion and mental health?

 

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