Developing Your Own Philosophical Perspectives

What Is a Philosophical Perspective?

A philosophical perspective is a reasoned, justified view on a philosophical question — not merely a personal opinion. VCAA requires students to develop their own perspectives, meaning:
- The perspective must be supported by premises and reasons
- It must engage with the set texts and relevant thinkers
- It must acknowledge objections and respond to them
- It must be formulated in precise philosophical language

A perspective is not a guess, a feeling, or a summary of someone else’s view. It is an argument you are prepared to defend.

What Makes a Perspective Genuinely Philosophical?

Developing a Perspective on Each Question

On Pleasure and Self-Discipline

Example perspective: Self-discipline is not merely a tool for achieving pleasure but is partly constitutive of the good life — a person who can only experience pleasure when everything goes well lacks the resilience and self-possession that a genuinely good life requires.

• Premise 1: A good life must be sustainable across varied circumstances, including adversity.
• Premise 2: Self-discipline (Aristotle’s sophrosyne, Epictetus’s mastery of desire) provides this resilience.
• Premise 3: Unrestricted pursuit of pleasure leaves the self hostage to fortune — undermining the very condition for sustained wellbeing.
• Response to hedonist objection: Even Epicurus acknowledges that indiscriminate pleasure-seeking produces more pain — so self-discipline is essential even on hedonist grounds.

VCAA FOCUS: A perspective does not have to resolve the question definitively. It can be nuanced — “pleasure and virtue are both necessary, but neither is sufficient on its own.”

On the Nature of Happiness

Example perspective: Aristotle’s account of happiness as eudaimonia (activity in accordance with virtue) is more defensible than Mill’s hedonic account because it explains why we judge some pleasant lives as not truly good.

• The experience machine thought experiment shows that we value real achievement and connection, not just the subjective feel of happiness.
• Aristotle’s account is sensitive to this — it builds in the requirement that activity be genuine and excellent.
• However, Aristotle’s account can be supplemented by Mill’s concern for all affected parties — eudaimonia that ignores others’ wellbeing is incomplete.

On Love and Friendship

Example perspective: Virtue friendship is necessary for a fully good life, but it need not be limited to the narrow Aristotelian model; care relationships that involve vulnerability and dependency are also constitutive of flourishing.

• Premise: Humans are vulnerable, dependent beings — to acknowledge this is not a weakness but a condition of genuine connection.
• Support: de Beauvoir and care ethicists argue that the good life must include relationships of care, not just relationships between equals exercising virtues.
• Qualification: Aristotle’s virtue friendship captures something important — the good life requires people who genuinely care about who we are, not just what we can do for them.

On Freedom and Authenticity

Example perspective: Genuine freedom requires social conditions for its exercise — an account of authenticity that ignores whether those conditions exist is philosophically incomplete.

• Sartre is right that bad faith is a deep threat to the good life.
• But de Beauvoir is right that you cannot coherently pursue your own authentic freedom while ignoring the systemic denial of others’ freedom.
• Therefore, the good life requires both personal authenticity and a commitment to the social conditions that make authenticity possible for all.

How to Write Your Perspective in an Exam

Structure for a perspective response:

1. State your thesis clearly: “I argue that…”
2. Give your first reason: “This is because…”
3. Give your second reason: “Furthermore…”
4. Acknowledge the strongest objection: “One might object that…”
5. Respond to the objection: “However, this objection fails because…”
6. Restate and qualify your conclusion: “Therefore, while [concession], the good life is primarily…”

Marking Vocabulary

VCAA rewards precision. Use these phrases:
- “I contend that…” / “My perspective is that…”
- “This premise is more plausible than [rival’s] because…”
- “While [thinker X] argues…, I find this unconvincing on the grounds that…”
- “A more defensible position is…”

EXAM TIP: Your perspective does not have to align with any single thinker. You can draw on multiple positions, synthesise them, or construct a genuinely novel position — as long as it is argued, not merely asserted.

COMMON MISTAKE: Ending an essay with “In conclusion, there are many different views on this question” is not a perspective. A perspective takes a stance.

REMEMBER: Developing a perspective requires intellectual courage — you must say what you think, defend it, and acknowledge its limits. This is the philosophical skill VCAA is assessing.