AQA A LEVEL PHILOSOPHY Essay Plans - Moral Philosophy
A* Level Essay Plans which are concise and easy to understand.
Written by a student predicted 4A*, with an offer to study Philosophy & Economics at the LSE.
Very helpful to write a top grade essay.
- AVE focuses on being a good human, and then good actions will follow. Kant and Util
focus on what makes a morally good individual action.
- Thesis: Although AVE can be successfully defended against clear guidance on how to
act & clashing virtues, fails to individual and moral good.
Outline:
- Function argument: AVE says all things have a function, and to be a good thing it needs
to function well (flourishing). To function well one requires virtues. Use knife analogy.
Functioning well fulfils our purpose, which is to flourish.
- Functioning is based off our distinctive characteristic (reason), so functioning is living a
life in accordance with reason. This combined with good virtues (e.g., temperance, or
courage), means we can be guided by the right reasons. Phronesis or practical wisdom
(the intellectual virtue of practical reason) means we have a general knowledge of what
is good, and in particular situations, so we can deliberate well and then act on that
deliberation (to know the correct action).
- Virtues developed through habituation. Virtues are long lasting character traits, give us
a specific disposition to act in a certain way.
- People should find the golden mean, which is accessed through practical wisdom.
- Eudaimonia.
- Mention voluntary vs involuntary actions.
Strengths:
- Takes a holistic approach which seems correct; morality is more than just our actions.
- Recognises the role of reason.
- People agree that acting courageously generally is beneficial for society.
- Eudaimonia is more than happiness: it is a constant state and doesn’t change.
Eudaimonia as a universal goal is admirable.
Issue 1:
- Doesn’t give clear guidance on how to act.
- Kant & util do, and felicific calculus shows how complexed moral actions are.
- E.g., when considering should I speak up, you have to consider so much.
Response:
- This becomes a strength of AVE: virtue ethics emphasises phronesis and thus once
practical wisdom is achieved you will know where the golden mean is. This is only
developed through experience.
- We learn how to be virtuous through degrees: (mention skill analogy): and so
eventually we will know where the golden mean is.
Response to response:
- Becomes restricted to only those who have practical wisdom: it is an exclusive moral
theory.
Final AVE defence:
- By the time people come to evaluate their lives and consider AVE, they have practical
wisdom.
- Also, Hursthouse argues that there are rules in virtue ethics that can be applied to
moral dilemmas and to our day-to-day lives. She calls them ‘v-rules’, which are
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