Religion and Human Rights

Nine issues, and a few are set

This unit of the course is about human rights, and it works differently from an exam on a fixed list of topics. The specification publishes nine issues: gender equality; LGBTQ+ rights; racial equality of Black, Asian and minority ethnic people and communities; the right to education; the right to freedom from slavery and forced labour; the right to life and freedom from capital punishment; the right to seek justice for human rights violations; the rights of people with disabilities; and the rights of refugees and asylum seekers. Each year WJEC sets three of them, and two of those three are chosen, studied through the two religions on your course and through non-religious perspectives. The unit is set and marked by WJEC, and its marks lean most heavily towards APPLYING beliefs, with no separate weighting for knowledge on its own. That changes what revision is for. Learning one paragraph per issue is a gamble on which issues come up, and a paragraph that could be pasted into any issue has not applied anything. What carries over from year to year is a method: take a belief you have learned, find what is distinct about the set issue, and say exactly how the belief bears on THAT. One quick check runs through the whole module. Put the name of a different issue into your sentence. If it still reads correctly, nothing has been applied yet. The examples here are Christian, Muslim and non-religious. If your course studies a different world religion, the method is exactly the same, and the teachings you apply are the ones your own course sets. Choosing sources and reaching a final judgement are separate skills with modules of their own, and nothing in this module asks what you believe.

Five words for applying a belief

These five words are used precisely from here on. Two of them, a principle and an application, are the pair the whole unit turns on, so they are defined here without an example of either. The examples come later, and telling the two apart is your job.

Tap the two that apply a belief to education

Five sentences from answers on the right to education. Tap the TWO that apply a belief to this issue rather than to any issue.

• Christians believe every person is made in the image of God, so they support human rights.
• Many Christians read the parable of the talents as teaching that gifts are meant to be developed, and argue that a child kept from learning is kept from developing them.
• Humanists value human dignity, so they care about this issue.
• Many humanists put great weight on reason and free choice, and argue that both depend on learning, so denying somebody an education narrows the very abilities they see as central to a good life.
• Every religion agrees that education is important.

The sentence that fits everything

A student writes one sentence about a belief and uses it, word for word, in answers on three different set issues. What does that tell the student about the sentence?

• It has not yet applied anything, because a sentence that suits three different issues says nothing about what makes any one of them distinct
• It is an efficient sentence worth learning by heart, since it will earn marks on whichever issues are set
• It must be inaccurate, because a belief cannot really bear on three issues at once
• It is fine provided it names which tradition holds the belief

Naming against applying

Here are two sentences about racial equality, written by the same student a week apart. Both state a real belief accurately and both attribute it fairly. Only one of them has done the work this unit marks, and the difference is not length or vocabulary. It is whether the belief has been aimed at anything in particular.

Match each rights issue to what an answer must engage

Two sentences that pass for forced labour

The set issue is freedom from slavery and forced labour. Select the TWO sentences that pass the swap test for this issue.

• Many Christians hold that a person made in the image of God can never be owned, so forced labour denies what a person is
• Many humanists put great weight on each person being free to shape their own life, so work forced under threat removes exactly that freedom
• Many Christians believe everyone is precious to God, so they support human rights
• Humanists care about people, so they are against bad things happening to them
• Many Muslims believe all people are equal before Allah, so they oppose racism

Choose the belief that fits the kind of right

Before applying anything, ask what KIND of right the set issue is about, because that decides which of your principles will bear on it most directly. Here is one useful way to sort the nine. It is a way of thinking, not a grouping the specification itself uses, so use it only where it helps. Some rights are about being free FROM something done to a person. Being forced to work, or a state taking a life as a punishment. Some are about ACCESS TO something a person needs. Learning, or a way to have a wrong recognised and put right. Some are about EQUAL TREATMENT. Not being treated differently because of who a person is. A principle about equal worth bears most directly on the third kind. A principle that a person can never be treated as a thing bears most directly on the first. The second kind usually needs a principle about what people owe one another, such as the teaching to love your neighbour, which many Christians read through the parable of the Good Samaritan as reaching strangers as well as friends, or the humanist concern for the wellbeing of every person. Some issues sit across two kinds, and the rights of people with disabilities is the clearest case: it is about equal treatment and about access at once. Saying so is not hedging. It shows the marker that you looked at the issue before you reached for a belief.

Sort the rights run

Five quick calls on what kind of right each issue is mainly about. Three lives.

Order the application method

Five moves for applying a belief to whichever issue is set. Put them into the order that makes each move possible.

• Read the set issue and decide what kind of right it is about
• Find what is true of this issue and of no other
• Choose the principle from your course that bears most directly on that
• Write the sentence that connects the principle to it, saying who holds the principle
• Put another issue in its place, and rewrite if the sentence still reads correctly

A key for one door

Leave religion aside for a moment and picture a locksmith. Somebody arrives and asks for a key to their own front door. The locksmith could hand over a blank: the right metal, the right size, perfectly made, and it slides into every lock on the street. It opens none of them. The whole craft is in the notches. The locksmith looks at this lock, works out the pattern that only this lock has, and cuts the blank to match it. The finished key is no better made than the blank. It is simply aimed at something. Now notice the check a locksmith would use. Try the finished key in the next door along. If it opens that door too, something has gone wrong, because a key that opens every door is not a key for any door. A good answer in this unit is the finished key. The belief is the blank you brought with you, learned and accurate. The work is looking at the lock in front of you and cutting to fit it.

Complete the education reasoning

The right to education is mainly about _____ to something a person needs. What is true of it and of no other issue, its _____, is that a person kept from learning is kept from developing. A _____ about developing gifts bears on that directly, and a sentence connecting the two is an _____. If putting racial equality in its place still leaves the sentence reading correctly, it has failed the _____.

Build an applied sentence on seeking justice

The set issue is the right to seek justice for human rights violations. Choose the option in each gap that turns a belief into an application.

Preparing for the set issues

The three issues for your year have just been announced and you are preparing your work on the two you will study. Work through three decisions.

• You have a paragraph on equal worth that you wrote last month and like very much. You are tempted to use it unchanged for both of your issues. Decide what to do with it.
• One of your issues is the rights of people with disabilities, and your first instinct is to reach for equal worth. Before you write, you stop to check one thing. Decide what it is.
• Your non-religious paragraph says that humanists do not believe in God and so they leave it to the law. A friend says it is fine because it mentions humanists. Decide what to do.

Apply two perspectives to one issue

Choose ONE issue: the right to education, or freedom from slavery and forced labour. Explain how one religious perspective and one non-religious perspective each apply to it. This asks about applying views accurately, not about what you personally believe.

• Name the kind of right, and what only this issue has
• Apply one attributed principle from Christianity or your world religion
• Apply one non-religious principle to the same feature, with equal care
• Run the swap test on one sentence and show how you would fix it
• Say which principle fits the issue more directly, and why