HKDSE ERS cheat sheet

Paper 1 (Compulsory) covers three areas: (1) Ethics and Religious Studies: basic concepts; (2) Personal and Social Ethics; (3) Religion and Society; each area carries roughly equal weighting in the compulsory paper.

Three normative ethical approaches dominate the syllabus: consequentialism (judge acts by outcomes, e.g. utilitarianism's greatest happiness principle), deontology (duty- and rule-based, e.g. Kant's categorical imperative), and virtue ethics (character and flourishing, e.g. Aristotle's golden mean).

Key distinction: a moral agent is the person who acts and is accountable; a moral patient is the being who can be harmed or benefited. Status questions (e.g. abortion, animal ethics) turn on whether a being counts as a moral patient.

Fact–value distinction (Hume's is–ought gap): descriptive claims about what is the case cannot by themselves entail prescriptive claims about what ought to be done without a bridging value premise.

Moral relativism (descriptive vs normative) versus moral objectivism: relativism explains diversity of moral codes; objectivism holds some moral truths hold independently of culture. Distinguish cultural description from moral justification.

Moral reasoning structure for essays: state the issue, identify the ethical question, apply at least two perspectives, raise a counter-argument, then reach a justified conclusion. Marks are awarded for evaluation, not description alone.

Religious ethics in the syllabus includes Christian, Buddhist and Confucian traditions: agape and stewardship (Christianity), the Five Precepts and compassion/karuna (Buddhism), ren and li with the junzi ideal (Confucianism).

Ethical theories are applied to concrete issues in Paper 2: bioethics (abortion, euthanasia, genetic engineering), sexuality and marriage, business and economic justice, environmental ethics, war and peace, and human rights.

Abortion: apply the sanctity-of-life view (life is intrinsically valuable from conception) against the quality-of-life and autonomy arguments; key concepts are personhood, potentiality, and the mother's bodily autonomy.

Euthanasia: distinguish voluntary/non-voluntary/involuntary and active/passive; the doctrine of double effect permits foreseen but unintended death from pain relief under strict conditions; slippery-slope arguments concern legalisation.

Sexuality and marriage: ethical debates include premarital sex, homosexuality, and same-sex marriage; arguments draw on natural-law/procreative views, love-and-commitment views, and autonomy and equality rights.

Environmental ethics: anthropocentrism (nature valued for human use) versus biocentrism (all living things have intrinsic value) versus ecocentrism (ecosystems as the unit of moral concern); stewardship is a middle religious position.

Business ethics: examine the profit-maximisation view (Friedman) against stakeholder theory; apply concepts of corporate social responsibility, justice in wages, and whistle-blowing as a duty when serious harm is at stake.

War and peace: just-war theory has jus ad bellum (just cause, legitimate authority, last resort, proportionality) and jus in bello (non-combatant immunity, proportionality); pacifism rejects all war.

Human rights: distinguish legal rights from moral rights, and negative rights (freedom from interference) from positive rights (entitlements to provision); conflicts of rights require a ranking principle.

Personal and social ethics essays should identify the moral dilemma, apply at least two theories or religious perspectives, address a strong objection, and conclude with a defended position rather than a neutral summary.

Religion's social functions include meaning-making, social cohesion (Durkheim), legitimation of norms, and prophetic critique of injustice; distinguish integrative from critical roles of religion.

Science and religion: models of relationship include conflict, independence, dialogue, and integration; distinguish methodological naturalism in science from metaphysical naturalism as a philosophical stance.

Religious language: distinguish univocal, equivocal, and analogical predication; verificationist and falsificationist challenges to religious language versus responses based on function, symbol, and myth.

Problem of evil: the logical problem (inconsistent triad of omnipotence, omnibenevolence, and evil) versus the evidential problem; responses include the free-will defence, soul-making theodicy, and process theology.

Religious experience as evidence: distinguish numinous experience (Otto), mystical experience, and conversion; apply the principle of credulity against the principle of testimony, and note the problem of conflicting claims.

Religion and morality: the Euthyphro dilemma (is the good good because God commands it, or does God command it because it is good?) frames divine-command ethics against autonomy-based ethics.

Religion and social issues: examine religious responses to poverty, human rights, bioethics, and environmental crises; distinguish conservative, moderate, and liberal positions within traditions rather than treating a tradition as monolithic.

Exam skill: for 'evaluate' questions, present both a supporting and a challenging argument for each claim, weigh them by a stated criterion (e.g. coherence, explanatory power, practical consequence), and state the basis of your judgement.