LFU:online

After attending this proseminar, students will have developed an understanding of the relationship between morality and ethics. They will also receive an overview of the most important ethical theories, taking into account differences and commonalities. Finally, students will be able to reflect ethically on a number of social problems and assess them in a methodologically sensitive way.

This proseminar provides a general introduction to philosophical ethics by focusing on significant debates and relevant reference texts. Students will gain a systematic and historical overview of ethical theories, ideas, concepts, and principles as expressed, for example, in virtue ethics, deontological ethics, consequentialist ethics, phenomenological ethics, or feminist ethics. Special attention will be given in this broader context to a number of pressing social concerns, such as discrimination, poverty, reproductive rights, just war, capital punishment, animal rights, human enhancement, and so on. Students will have the opportunity to engage with exemplary case studies, testing how to recognize philosophical presuppositions and assess the validity of ethical arguments.

Inputs by instructor; reading and discussion of texts; case studies; possibly film sequences.

Written proseminar paper (and optional lecture).

To be announced in the proseminar.  

None.