PYQ Vault · Paper 1 · Political Theory — meaning and approaches
Discuss the significance of a normative approach to political theory.
How the answer moves
The flow snapshot — the routes in, the body, the counter-view and the routes out.
Flow snapshot — how the answer moves
Intro routes
Ri: asks “what ought to be” not “what is” — Plato/Aristotle as founders. R2 facts alone cannot give politics its point — values do.
Body flow
Links politics with ethics (Cohen) — standards of justice, liberty, equality — checks mere technique → actual vs ideal keeps reform alive — revival: Rawls — Macpherson, Dworkin, Sen.
Counter-view
Subjectivity, abstractness, utopianism; Berlin's value pluralism doubts one final moral order.
Conclusion routes
R1 empirical explains what is; normative says what is worth pursuing. R2 the revival after Rawls proves it
Model answer
Handwritten, in the form it would be written in the examination hall.
