Module PHLM006 for 2019/0
- Overview
- Aims and Learning Outcomes
- Module Content
- Indicative Reading List
- Assessment
Postgraduate Module Descriptor
PHLM006: Contemporary Ethics
This module descriptor refers to the 2019/0 academic year.
Module Content
Syllabus Plan
Whilst the module’s precise content may vary from year to year, it is envisaged that the syllabus will cover some or all of the following topics:
Practical and theoretical themes relating to current problems.
The role of human nature arguments in current practical ethics such as interspecies ethics, violence, and responsibility in relation to oneself, others and global ethics on the one hand the importance of meaning, rules and normativity on the other.
Learning and Teaching
This table provides an overview of how your hours of study for this module are allocated:
| Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities | Guided independent study | Placement / study abroad |
|---|---|---|
| 24 | 276 | 0 |
...and this table provides a more detailed breakdown of the hours allocated to various study activities:
| Category | Hours of study time | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities | 20 | 10 x 2 hour taught sessions- 30 minute lectures and 1.5 hour seminar discussion of readings for each 2-hour session. Students need to prepare by reading assigned texts |
| Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities | 4 | Facilitated 4 hour group discussion, student presentations |
| Guided Independent Study | 34 | Analyse course reading and write a succinct summary of the key arguments of the text., to be submitted early on in the course |
| Guided Independent Study | 80 | Analyse course reading, study critical debate on them, write a brief review essay to be submitted midterm of the course |
| Guided Independent Study | 42 | Conduct guided and independent research, to prepare essay theme and individual presentation on it in a dedicated course session |
| Guided Independent Study | 120 | Writing independent research essay Conduct guided and independent research on a theme from the course, write a scholarly essay to be submitted at the end of term. |
Online Resources
This module has online resources available via ELE (the Exeter Learning Environment).
Indicative Reading List
This reading list is indicative - i.e. it provides an idea of texts that may be useful to you on this module, but it is not considered to be a confirmed or compulsory reading list for this module.
Readings will be part journal articles, book chapters and a few books and where possible available on a module online reading list on ELE.
Indicative Readings:
Jürgen Habermas: The Future of Human Nature, Polity Press 2003
S. Kagan, What's Wrong with Speciesism?, Journal of Applied Philosophy Vol 33 (1), 2016, 1–21
Angela Smith, Responsibility for Attitudes: Activity and Passivity in Mental Life, Ethics, 115:2, 2005
Judith Butler, Senses of the Subject, Fordham University Press 2015
Antti Kauppinen, "Meaningfulness", in Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Well-Being, ed. Guy Fletcher, Abingdon: Routledge 2015, 281-291.
Allan Gibbard (2012), Meaning and Normativity, Oxford University Press
Thomas Pogge, Real World Justice, The Journal of Ethics 9, Nos. 1-2 (2005), 29-53, 31
Seyla Benhabib, Dignity in Adversity. Human Rights in Troubled Times, Polity Press 2011
