Undergraduate Module Descriptor

POL2028: Political Ethics: Theory and Case Studies

This module descriptor refers to the 2016/7 academic year.

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:

Introduction to political ethics: a perennial problem
Putting morality into politics, taking morality out of politics: the case of Machiavelli
The ‘ethic of conviction’ and the ‘ethic of responsibility’: moral guides to politics
Lying in politics
The question of integrity
Personal vs. political conduct
Moral traditions and politics
Monism, pluralism, relativism and political conduct
The problem of ‘dirty hands’: three literary accounts
Just war and ‘whistle blowing’

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
22	128	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 Activity	22	11 x 2 hours sessions with a mix of formal lecture, collective discussion and group presentations
Guided Independent Learning	128	A variety of private study tasks directed by the module leader. These tasks may include (with an indicative number of hours):

This module has online resources available via ELE (the Exeter Learning Environment).

Indicative list of web based and electronic resources:

- Lynne McFall, ’Integrity’, Ethics, Vol. 98, No. 1 (October 1987), 5-20.

- Michael Walzer, ‘Political Action: The Problem of Dirty Hands’, Philosophy and Public Affairs, Vol. 2, No. 2 (Winter, 1973), 160-180

Other resources:

A number of newspaper articles and reports will be available for some topics related to the case studies on the module website as appropriate.