Existence, Knowledge and Ethics: Doing Philosophy Carefully
What this domain asks of you
Philosophical investigation begins with a question that is genuinely open: does God exist, what makes a person the same person over time, is knowledge possible without experience, what makes an action right? Your task is not to defend a favourite answer but to understand what each question presupposes and which answers survive scrutiny.
Concepts to master
Know the standard positions and their labels. In metaphysics: dualism and physicalism about mind; determinism, libertarianism and compatibilism about free will; personal identity as continuity of memory, of body, or of psychological connectedness. In epistemology: rationalism versus empiricism; the a priori/a posteriori and analytic/synthetic distinctions; the tripartite analysis of knowledge as justified true belief and the Gettier-style cases that challenge it; scepticism, foundationalism and coherentism. In ethics: consequentialism (including utilitarianism), deontology (Kant's categorical imperative, the formula of humanity), virtue ethics (Aristotle's eudaimonia and the doctrine of the mean), plus metaethical questions about whether moral claims can be true at all.
Traps examiners set
- Confusing a descriptive claim about what people do with a normative claim about what they ought to do.
- Treating a necessary condition as sufficient ("pleasure is necessary for happiness, so maximising pleasure guarantees it").
- Attributing a crude version of a theory: Bentham's hedonic calculus is not the whole of utilitarianism, and Kant's ethics is not simply "follow the rules".
- Answering a conceptual question with an empirical study, or vice versa.
Rule of thumb
Before evaluating, restate the position in its strongest form and identify its central claim, then ask what evidence or argument would count against it. If you cannot say what would refute a view, you have not yet understood it.