Aims

This course gives students a synthetic and critical outline of the principal contemporary approaches to economic and social ethics. In this way, and through the effective use of analytical tools with which they are provided, the course aims to help students to take a critical and informed position towards the ethical issues which arise in the broad field covered by the economic, social and political sciences.

Main themes

Inevitably perhaps within economic and social debate, there is constant confusion between empirical comments, theoretical statements and value judgments. The course tries to teach students how to clarify this debate by distinguishing the various types of question, by clarifying the criteria which, for each type, should enable them to decide between competing positions, and examines how the value judgments which underlie the debate can themselves be the subject of a rigorous discussion.

Other information (prerequisite, evaluation (assessment methods), course materials recommended readings, ...)

Prerequisite: Students should ideally have some basic notions of economic culture, gained for example through an introductory course in Political Economics.
Evaluation: The evaluation is based on a short individually written text (written as an extension of the team work) and an oral interview which takes this text as a starting-point.