SECTION B
Essay
125 marks
Just because you have a choice, it does not mean that any of them has to be right.
WRITE IN
90 min
1,000–1,200 words
Reading the topic
The topic warns that having options does not guarantee that any of them is good: some situations offer only bad or tragic choices. The examiner expects an essay on moral dilemmas, the limits of freedom of choice, and how individuals and governments act responsibly when every option carries a cost.
ThesisFreedom of choice does not promise a right answer, so ethical maturity lies in choosing the least harmful option honestly, and in working to create better options for the future.
Dimensions to cover
- 1Moral philosophy: tragic dilemmas show that even the best choice may leave a moral remainder of regret
- 2Governance: during crises, governments must choose between lives and livelihoods, where every policy hurts someone
- 3Democracy: voters may find no candidate acceptable, which is why the option to reject all exists
- 4Health care: allocating scarce ventilators or organs forces doctors to choose without any fully right answer
- 5Individual: personal decisions on career or family often involve trade-offs rather than right versus wrong
- 6Consumers: an abundance of choices in markets can hide that all options share the same harmful features
Counter-view
- The opposing view is that there is always a right choice if one reasons carefully enough, through utilitarian calculation or moral rules. The essay should show that such methods help rank options but cannot remove the loss involved, and that pretending otherwise leads to moral complacency
Open and close
- Open: Open with a district collector in a flood with one boat and two marooned villages, knowing that whichever she reaches first, the other will suffer
- Close: Conclude that when all choices are wrong, the duty is to choose transparently and with compassion, and then to work to expand the options for the next time
Where marks usually go
- Writing a decision-making or career guidance essay without engaging with moral dilemmas
- Arguing that since no choice is right, choosing does not matter, which drifts into fatalism
- Ignoring the institutional side, such as how policy can create better options, and staying only at the personal level
Examples that fit
- ThinkerJean-Paul Sartre described a student torn between joining the Free French forces and caring for his mother, arguing that no ethical doctrine could decide for him.Existentialism is a Humanism, Jean-Paul Sartre (lecture, 1945)
- ThinkerPhilosopher Philippa Foot introduced the trolley problem, in which every option involves someone's death, to examine the ethics of tragic choices.The Problem of Abortion and the Doctrine of the Double Effect, Philippa Foot (1967)
- CaseIn PUCL v. Union of India (2013), the Supreme Court directed the introduction of the NOTA option, recognising that voters may judge no candidate worth choosing.People's Union for Civil Liberties v. Union of India, Supreme Court of India (2013)
- LiteratureIn the Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna faces a war in which every path means killing kin or abandoning duty, and his despair frames the dialogue with Krishna.Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 1 and 2