Module description
This module will examine some key issues relating to value and normativity, and will explore some of the central themes within normative ethics, covering its historical underpinnings and contemporary debate.
The module will introduce students to some of the classical concerns of moral philosophy and to controversies about the nature of moral philosophy and about the best way to proceed in it.
Ethics is, broadly, the study of what is right or wrong; good or bad; required, permitted or forbidden; and what terms like 'right' and 'wrong' even mean.
We'll be covering some central topics in value theory (also known as axiology, questions about what is valuable), normative ethics (questions about what we ought to do and how we can decide), applied ethics (questions about what we should do in concrete situations, concerning for example the morality of eating meat or abortion), and meta-ethics (questions about, for example, what moral claims and judgments mean and the conditions under which we're responsible for our actions. Our aim is for you to come away from the module with a broad understanding of the way ethics is done in contemporary philosophy, and deep understanding of some key issues.
Assessment details
When this module is taught in the Autumn term (Semester 1), there will be alternative assessment for Study Abroad students at King's for Semester 1 only.
SEMESTER 1 ONLY Study Abroad students: Summative assessment: 1 x 2000-word essay (100%) due in Assessment Period 1 (January).
WHOLE YEAR Study Abroad students: Summative assessment: 1 x 2-hour exam (100%) in Assessment Period 2.
Formative assessment: 1 x 1,500-word essay
Educational aims & objectives
- To communicate to students some of the central issues of moral philosophy
- To teach them to read with close and disciplined attention inevitably difficult philosophical texts
- To be intellectually open in a way that is necessary to anyone who studies a discipline that is continuously self-critical and reflective about its assumptions.
Learning outcomes
By the end of the module, students will be able to demonstrate intellectual, transferable and practicable skills appropriate to a Level 4 module and in particular will be able to demonstrate:
- that they understand some of the central problems of moral philosophy, why they have arisen and why they continue to occupy moral philosophers.
- that they are able to make the detailed distinctions necessary for disciplined thought in philosophy while at the same time understanding the wider systematic issues raised.
- that they understand the relation between philosophical thought about morality and the moral life.
Teaching pattern
One two-hour weekly lecture and one one-hour weekly seminar per week over ten weeks.