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Now in a new
(2nd) edition - revised and enlarged!

This is a handbook for students
preparing for Philosophy of
Religion and Ethics papers at AS
level, now revised to match the requirements of the new
examinations.
It is a
practical guide for teachers and students, complementing
rather than replacing other books in the series. It
includes advice on preparing and revising from notes, and on
examination techniques.
A
detailed contents list is given below the 'suggestions for
further reading'.
Suggestions for further reading
Whether you are working from the
existing edition, or planning to move over to the revised one,
the following is a selection of additional material that is
valuable for students.
Anthologies
and reference books:
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For a
detailed work of general reference, covering all aspects of
philosophy: Concise Routledge
Encyclopedia of Philosophy,
Routledge, 2000
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Davies, Brian
(ed) Philosophy of Religion: a guide and anthology,
OUP, 2000. this is particularly useful students
looking for appropriate passages from classic texts.
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Helm, Paul
(ed) Faith with Reason, OUP, 1999. This is one
of the ‘Oxford Readers’ giving a useful collection of
extracts from key thinkers in the philosophy of religion,
with introductions to each section, setting the context for
the passages included. This is a very useful collection for
getting students into an exploration of the original texts,
and therefore the style of philosophical argument.
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Quinn &
Taliaferro (eds) Companion to the Philosophy of Religion,
Blackwell, 1999
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Sterba, James
P (ed) Ethics: The Big Questions, Blackwell, 1998
This is a substantial and valuable anthology for both
students and teachers, covering meta-ethics, moral theories,
and challenges to ethics.
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Johnson,
Oliver (ed) Ethics: selections from Classical and
Contemporary Writers (7th edition), Harcourt
Brace, 1994.
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Introduction
to Philosophy: Classical and Contemporary readings,
Wadsworth, 1999
Other useful
titles, including titles recommended to me by AS level teachers
as useful for teaching Philosophy and Ethics
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Appelbaum, D
and Thompson, M (eds) World Philosophy, Vega, 2002
This is a large format illustrated book on philosophy,
designed for the general reader but suitable for students.
It sets out the issues with illustrations to stimulate an
imaginative appreciation of what philosophy is about, and
includes sections on the Philosophy of Religion, and Ethics.
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Blackburn,
Simon Being Good, OUP, 2001 An attractive
little book, giving a clear and lively introduction to some
of the puzzles of ethics and their relationship to
fundamental principles and beliefs.
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For revision
purposes, Greg Dewar’s Religious Studies: Philosophy and
Ethics through diagrams, OUP, 2002, provides a concise
but very brief outline of all major topics.
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Hick,
John The Existence of God This may be an
old book, but it is very useful, particularly in its very
clear summary of the Ontological Argument.
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J.L. Mackie’s
The Miracle of Theism, OUP, 1982, a very interesting
critique of the arguments for the existence of God. The
title hints at Mackie’s general conclusion, namely that it
is a miracle that people continue to believe in the God of
traditional theism
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MacIntyre,
Alasdair A Short History of Ethics, Routledge, 1998
(second edition)
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MacIntyre, Alisdair
After Virtue: a study in Moral Theory, 1984.
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Magee, Bryan
The Story of Philosophy, London, Dorling Kindersley,
1998. This book is particularly useful for getting the
background, both culturally and in terms of philosophy, for
the various thinkers – with wonderfully lucid summaries of
their work.
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Pojman, L P has a good
number of textbooks suitable for students on a range of
issues in ethics (e.g. Ethics: Discovering Right and
Wrong, Wadsworth, 2001) and philosophy of religion. He
comes with the recommendation of several experienced
teachers.
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Singer, Peter
Practical Ethics, CUP, 1993 A very influential
book; in general Singer takes a preference utilitarian
approach to ethical issues.
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Singer, Peter
Writings on an Ethical
Life, Fourth Estate, 2002 (a range of extracts from his
other books)
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Smart, Ninian
World Philosophies, London and New York, Routledge,
1999
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Stone,
Martin, 'Philosophy of Religion' in Philosophy 2 ed.
A.C.Grayling (OUP, 1998)
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Taliaferro,
Charles Contemporary Philosophy of Religion,
Blackwell, 1998
Introduction
1. Objectives at
AS level – moving beyond GCSE
2. Selecting and
demonstrating knowledge
3. Sustaining a
critical line of argument
4.
Looking at the context
5.
Handling source material
Chapter 1:
Influences of Ancient Greek Philosophy
1.
Plato
a. The Allegory
of the Cave
b. The Form of
the Good
c. The
implication of these ideas for religion
2.
Aristotle
a. The Four Causes
b. The Prime Mover
c. The implication of these ideas for
religion
Study guide and Revision
checklist
Chapter 2:
Arguments for the Existence of God and their Critics
1. Concepts of
God
a. The
Judaeo-Christian Idea of God
i) as Creator
ii) as personal
and loving
d. Terms used of
God and belief in God
i)
Eternal and Everlasting
ii)
Key Words Describing the God of Theism
c. ‘Basic
beliefs’
2. The
Ontological Argument
a. Anselm v Gaunilo
i) Anselm’s argument
ii) Gaunilo’s objection and
Anselm’s answer
b. Descartes v Kant
i) Descartes’ version of the
argument
ii)Kant’s criticism (given
in his Critique of Pure Reason)
c. Some modern debates
3.
The Cosmological Argument
a. Aquinas Cosmological Arguments
i) the Unmoved
Mover
ii) the Uncaused
Cause
iii) The Possible
and the Necessary
b. Some challenges to the Arguments
i) David Hume
ii) Bertrand Russell’s
response to Copleston’s argument
4.
4. The Teleological Argument (from Design)
a. Aquinas and Paley
i) regularity and purposeurpose
b. Hume, Mill and Darwinist challenges
i) Hume’s objections
ii) Mill’s objections
iii) Darwin and The
Origin of Species
iv) The impact of genetics
c. The Anthropic Principle
d. Intelligent design and irreducible complexity
e. Swinburne’s approach
5.
5. The Moral Argument
a. Kant’s argument
b. Other approaches
c. A psychological alternative
Study
guide and Revision checklist
Chapter
Chapter 3: Revelation and Religious Experience
1.
The nature of religious experience
a features of religious experience
b. mysticism
c. near-death experiences
d. Conversion
e. Group experiences
f. Meditation
2.
Can religious experiences be deemed revelation?
a. Revelation in Scriptures
3.
The Argument from Religious Experience
a. James and Swinburne
b. Challenges from Freud and Marx
c. Some conclusions
Study guide and Revision
checklist
Chapter
4: Challenges to Religious Belief
1.
The problem of Evil and Suffering
a.
Irenaeus
b. Augustine
c. Some Key
differences between Irenaeus and Augustine
d. Other
approaches to the problem
2.
Issues raised by Psychology and Sociology
a. Freud
b. Jung
c. Durkheim
d. Weber
e. Marx
3.
Alternative philosophies
a. Atheism
b. Humanism
c. Postmodernism
4.
Religion in a multicultural environment
Study guide and Revision
checklist
Chapter 5:
Religious Language
1.
Some Basic Features of Language
a. Cognitive and non-cognitive
b. ‘Believing in’
c. ‘Experiencing as’
2.
Verification and Falsification
a. Logical Positivism
b. Falsification
3.
Via negativa (Apophatic Way)
4.
Types of Religious Language
a. Analogy
i. Models and Qualifiers
b. Symbol
c. Myth
Study guide and Revision
checklist
Chapter 6:
Issues Raised by Science
1.
Historical Perspectives
2.
The Origin of the Universe
a. Dimensions
b. Big Bang theory
c. Religious views
i) Creatio ex nihilo
ii) Deism
iii) Creationism
iv)Non-literal
interpretations of creation
d. Implications for ‘God’
i) Does Our Perception of
the World Need a ‘God’?
3.
Freedom and Determinism
a. The ‘God’ Hypothesis?
b. hard and soft determinism
i) God’s Action and Prayer
4.
Miracles
a. Hume’s Criticisms
i) Inductive arguments
ii) Limitations of Hume’s
criticism
b. Regularity and particular events
i) Timing is everything…
ii) The Unlikelihood of
Everything
c. Interpreting miracles
i) The Unfairness of
miracles
d. Miracles and Prayer
Study guide and Revision
checklist
Chapter 7:
Body and Soul
1.
Greek Concepts
a. Plato
b. Aristotle
2.
Some modern thinkers
a. Descartes
i) later Dualist theories
b. Ryle and language
c. Richard Dawkins
3.
Life beyond death
a. reincarnation
b. re-becoming
c. immortality
i) heaven and hell
d. resurrection
i) disembodied existence
e. The Logical Options
Study guide and Revision
checklist
Chapter 8:
Ethical Arguments
1. Why be moral?
2. Some Key Terms
3. Presenting an
ethical argument
4. Meta-Ethics
a. ethical naturalism
b. ethical non-naturalism
i) intuitionism
c) ethical non-cognitivism
5. The Meaning of
Ethical Language
a. Logical Positivism
i)Threat and response
b. Emotivism
c. Prescriptivism
6. Absolutism and
Relativism
a. A relativist starting point
i) Multiculturalism
b. Alternatives to relativism and Consequentialism
c. Tolerance
Study guide and Revision
checklist
Chapter 9:
Ethical Theories
1. Natural Law
a. Aristotle
b. The Stoics
c. Aquinas
d. Rules and Situations
e. A key Problem
f. Advantages of the Natural Law approach
2. Utilitarianism
a. Origins and development
b. Bentham: Act Utilitarianism
c. Mill: Rule Utilitarianism
i) ‘Strong’ and ‘Weak’
d. Preference utilitarianism
e. Limitations of a Utilitarian Approach
f. Advantages of a Utilitarian Approach
g. Ethical Egoism
3. Kant’s Ethical
Theory
a. Duty
b. The Categorical Imperative
c. Kant and the Real World
d. Evaluating Kant’s Theory
4. Situation
Ethics
5. Virtue Ethics
a. Aristotle’s view of the virtues
b. Modern approaches
Study guide and Revision
checklist
Chapter 10:
Religious Ethics
1.
The Divine
Command theory of Ethics
a.
The Euthyphro dilemma
2.
Judaism
3.
Christianity
4.
Islam
5.
Hinduism
6.
Buddhism
7.
Sikhism
Study guide and Revision
checklist
Chapter 11:
Free Will and Conscience
1. Freedom will
and moral responsibility
a. How free?
b. Compatibilism
c. Freedom and God
2. Conscience
a. Aquinas
b. Hume
c. Butler
d. Freud
e. Innate or Acquired?
Study guide and Revision
checklist
Chapter 12:
Practical Ethics I
1 Abortion and euthanasia: the right to life
a. Applying ethical theories
b. Religious responses
2 The right to a child
a. Applying ethical theories
b. Religious responses
3 Genetic Engineering and Embryo Research
a. Applying ethical theories
b. Religious responses
Study guide and Revision
checklist
Chapter 13:
Practical Ethics II
1. Environmental
Ethics
a.
Applying ethical theories
b.
Religious responses
2. Equality in the Modern World?
a. Applying ethical theories
b.
Religious responses
3. War, Peace and Justice
a. Applying ethical theories
b.
Religious responses
Study guide and Revision
checklist
Chapter 14:
Preparing for the Examination
1.
Revising from your notes
2.
Checking the specifications
3.
Essay outlines: advantages and disadvantages
4. On
the day… Issues of space and time
Further
Reading
Glossary
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