Ethics
- Course Code
- PHIL 0150
- Course Type
- Tutorials
- Subject Credit
- Course Availability
This course examines a variety of normative ethical theories including varieties of consequentialism, virtue ethics and contractualism, together with related concepts including happiness, well-being, rights and equality. Alongside these theories, there will be a chance to study debates in applied ethics, including medical ethics. Part of the course is also devoted to metaethical issues, including debates about the nature of moral properties, whether moral claims are true or false and how, if at all, it is possible to acquire moral knowledge.
Sample reading:
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics
David Hume, An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals
Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals
Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue (London: Duckworth, 1981)
J.L. Mackie, Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong (Penguin, 1973)
J.S. Mill, Utilitarianism
Peter Singer, Practical Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979)