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Paper 1

Paper 2

Paper 3

1.1 Identity

1.2 The self and the other

1.3 Consciousness

1.4 Personhood

1.5 Human nature

1.6 Freedom

2.1 The nature of art

2.2 The artist and the artistic process

2.3 Aesthetic experience and judgement

3.1 Nature of knowledge

3.2 Problems of knowledge

3.3 Application of knowledge

4.1 Normative ethics

4.2 Meta-ethics

4.3 Applied ethics

5.1 Nature and existence of God

5.2 Religious language

5.3 Religious experience and behaviour

6.1 Nature and methodologies of science

6.2 Science and the self

6.3 Science and society

7.1 The state

7.2 Justice

7.3 Liberty and rights

8.1 Social structures and institutions

8.2 Equality and discrimination

8.3 Gender

9.1 Philosophy and technology

9.2 Philosophy and the environment

9.3 The nature, function, and meaning of methodology of philosophy

10.1 Language, Truth and Logic – Alfred Jules Ayer

10.2 The Analects – Confucius

10.3 Meditations on First Philosophy – René Descartes

10.4 Black Skin, White Masks – Frantz Fanon

10.5 On the Genealogy of Morality – Friedrich Nietzsche

10.6 Creating Capabilities: The Human Development Approach – Martha C. Nussbaum

10.7 The Revolt of the Masses – José Ortega y Gasset

10.8 The Republic, Books IV–IX – Plato

10.9 The Ethics of Authenticity – Charles Taylor

10.10 Tao Te Ching – Lao Tzu

10.11 The Second Sex – Simone de Beauvoir

10.12 On Liberty – John Stuart Mill

IB Philosophy 10.9.5 Critique of Instrumental Reason Key Definitions

Definition

Flattening

Flattening is Taylor's metaphor for how the dominance of instrumental reason reduces the rich landscape of moral life to a flat surface of preferences, all treated as equally arbitrary and none possessing genuine moral authority.

Definition

Instrumental reason

Instrumental reason is the form of rationality concerned exclusively with finding the most efficient means to achieve a given end, without questioning the value or worthiness of the end itself. Taylor identifies it as one of the three malaises of modernity, alongside individualism and the loss of civic freedom.

Definition

Intrinsic value

Intrinsic value is the worth that something possesses in itself, independent of its usefulness to anyone or anything else. Contrasted with extrinsic (instrumental) value, which depends on serving as a means to a further end, it is central to debates about whether nature deserves protection for its own sake.

IB Philosophy 10.9.5 Critique of Instrumental Reason Key Definitions

Definition

Flattening

Flattening is Taylor's metaphor for how the dominance of instrumental reason reduces the rich landscape of moral life to a flat surface of preferences, all treated as equally arbitrary and none possessing genuine moral authority.

Definition

Instrumental reason

Instrumental reason is the form of rationality concerned exclusively with finding the most efficient means to achieve a given end, without questioning the value or worthiness of the end itself. Taylor identifies it as one of the three malaises of modernity, alongside individualism and the loss of civic freedom.

Definition

Intrinsic value

Intrinsic value is the worth that something possesses in itself, independent of its usefulness to anyone or anything else. Contrasted with extrinsic (instrumental) value, which depends on serving as a means to a further end, it is central to debates about whether nature deserves protection for its own sake.