Undergraduate Module Descriptor

PHL2012: Social Philosophy

This module descriptor refers to the 2018/9 academic year.

Module Aims

The aim of this module is to encourage and enable you to reflect critically on ways in which people’s social conditions, including students’ own social conditions, might shape and constrain their moral knowledge and agency. The module draws on materials from the social sciences, such as the history of slavery and abolition, the sociology of inequality, and connects with analytical philosophical debates on collective moral responsibility, the social conditions of knowledge and ignorance, and the nature and extent of moral duties to needy others. In essence, you will learn to think about the ways in which society impacts on our individual capacity for moral agency.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

This module's assessment will evaluate your achievement of the ILOs listed here – you will see reference to these ILO numbers in the details of the assessment for this module.
On successfully completing the programme you will be able to:
Module-Specific Skills1. address philosophically the question of whether or how far people's moral beliefs and agency are determined or constrained by their social conditions of existence;
2. Demonstrate the ability to think about moral questions in a specifically social and institutional context;
Discipline-Specific Skills3. think, reason and argue analytically in social philosophy;
4. apply philosophical analysis to practical issues of historical and contemporary significance;
Personal and Key Skills5. deploy philosophical analysis in the assessment of everyday personal and social practices; and
6. demonstrate the ability to reflect on taken for granted assumptions.

Module Content

Syllabus Plan

One 90 minute lecture per week and one tutorial per fortnight. Lectures provide you with a broad overview of the core philosophical issues and the problems they raise; they cover more ground than is possible in tutorials, and are designed to establish a context in which to think about the issues discussed in tutorials. A specific reading is assigned, and you are provided with a list of key issues to identify and discuss for each tutorial. Texts are carefully chosen as classic exemplars of the core course themes.

 

1. Freedom & determinism / moral agency & responsibility.

2. Collective responsibility?

3. The Marxian view of morality.

4. & 5. Social context and moral ignorance.

6. & 7. Social change and moral agency: the case of slavery, abolition and emancipation.

8. Inequality, functional importance and incentives.

9. Personal/political agency & collective responsibility (1): Rich egalitarianism?

10. Personal/political agency & collective responsibility (2): Duties to alleviate absolute poverty?

11. Moral saintliness & the demandingness of morality.

Learning and Teaching

This table provides an overview of how your hours of study for this module are allocated:

Scheduled Learning and Teaching ActivitiesGuided independent studyPlacement / study abroad
21.5128.50

...and this table provides a more detailed breakdown of the hours allocated to various study activities:

CategoryHours of study timeDescription
Scheduled Learning and Teaching activity 16.5Weekly 1.5 hour lectures. Lectures provide you with a broad overview of types and ways of social analysis; they cover more ground than is possible in tutorials, and are designed to establish a context in which to think about the issues discussed in tutorials.
Scheduled Learning and Teaching activity 5Fortnightly tutorials. A specific reading is assigned, and you are provided with a list of key issues to identify and discuss for each tutorial. Texts are carefully chosen as classic exemplars of the core course themes.
Guided independent study45Preparation for tutorial participation including reading and planning
Guided independent study83.5Preparation for essay, library, research etc.

Online Resources

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