OVERVIEW

Public ethics; procedural (who decides? How?) and substantive criteria (which principles, standards or rules should be relevant in deciding?) for the justification of public choices in democratic states.

AIMS AND CONTENT

LEARNING OUTCOMES

Getting acquainted with the different approaches to the justification of the choices that affect public life and its domains: environmental policies, welfare policies, immigration policies, positive action and ways to fight discrimination, etc. Being able to analyze a) the different criteria which guide public policies; b) the possible procedures for making legitimate choices in democratic decision contexts (who shall decide, and how?). Both elements are essential to what in contemporary philosophical literature goes under the name of "public reason".

AIMS AND LEARNING OUTCOMES

The course is intended to provide students with

• an accurate knowledge of the contemporary academic debate on the topic of the course
• mastery of its main theoretical and normative issues
• develop an autonomous critical and informed point of view, and competent arguments, on the issues discussed in class.
• important social skills, such as the ability to respect others and their needs, the willingness to overcome prejudices, to express and understand different points of view, and the ability to manage one's own social interactions
• awareness of their preferred learning strategies, ability to organize and assess their personal knowledge according to what they have understood and learned.
• improved oral and written communication skills, ability to adapt their communication to the context, utilise various sources and tools, critical thinking, elaborate and evaluate information, argumentation skills.

PREREQUISITES

None

TEACHING METHODS

Lectures, debate, problem-based learning, flipped classroom, case-based learning, role playing.

SYLLABUS/CONTENT

Principles for individuals and principles for institutions

The course focuses on the relation between the ethical principles that apply to the institutions of a democratic society and the ethical principles that apply to its individual members. Notably, we will ask whether and to what extent the ethical principles that guide institutions must also hold for individual morality, and to what extent public virtues should depend on private virtues. We will also ask which principles for individuals come to hold when democratic institutions do not fully comply with the ethical principles that should guide them.

RECOMMENDED READING/BIBLIOGRAPHY

Two books to choose among:

G.A. Cohen, Rescuing Justice and Equality, Harvard, Harvard University Press, 2008.

J. Rawls, Political Liberalism, New York, Columbia University Press, 1993.

P. Pettit, Republicanism, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1997.

I.M. Young, Responsibility for Justice, New York, Oxford University Press, 2013.

T. Shelbie, Dark Ghettos. Injustice, Dissent, and Reform, Cambridge MA, Harvard University Press, 2018. 

TEACHERS AND EXAM BOARD

Exam Board

VALERIA OTTONELLI (President)

FEDERICO ZUOLO

CORRADO FUMAGALLI (President Substitute)

ALBERTO GIORDANO (Substitute)

LESSONS

LESSONS START

20 February 2024

Class schedule

PUBLIC ETHICS

EXAMS

EXAM DESCRIPTION

Oral and written exam.

ASSESSMENT METHODS

Final written essay, for those who have attended the course. Alternatively, the student can choose an oral exam on two (for 6 credits) or three (for 9 credits) of the texts listed in the bibliography of the course.

The exam, both it its oral and written form, aims at ascertaining the student's critical awareness of the normative and theoretical issues examined during the course and an adequate knowledge of the main positions within the academic debate on the course's topic. The written essay must not consist in a mere summary of the existing literature, but must develop and defend by proper arguments a specific claim relating to a theme discussed during the course (on the model of academic essays of the relevant field).

Exam schedule