LPHIL7253 Values and Society Course Descriptor

Course Overview

These seminars in value theory and practical philosophy are designed to cultivate the research methods and oral presentation skills required for academic philosophy  as well as  an informed and reflective approach to life. Students’ summative work can be on a topic of their choice related to the course content. This research methods course has a particular focus on enhancing students’ research and presentation skills and imparting techniques for philosophical interpretation and analysis.

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

Knowledge and Understanding

Subject-Specific Skills

Transferable and Employability Skills

Teaching and Learning

This course has a dedicated Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) page with a syllabus and a range of additional resources (e.g. readings, question prompts, tasks, assignment briefs, and discussion boards) to orientate and engage students in their studies.

Teaching and learning strategies for this course will include:

• Lectures: Instructor-led classes.
• Seminars/workshops: Interactive sessions on project management principles, focused on applying theoretical concepts.
• Experiential Learning, which may include simulations and role-playing for hands-on experience, or guest speakers for insight from professionals.
• Online Resources: Flexible learning with additional study materials.

Faculty hold regular ‘office hours’, which are opportunities for students to drop in or sign up to explore ideas, raise questions, or seek targeted guidance or feedback, individually or in small groups.

Students are to attend and participate in all the scheduled teaching and learning activities for this course and to manage their directed learning and independent study.

Indicative total learning hours for this course: 150, including a minimum of 16.5 scheduled hours

Employability Skills

The study of philosophy cultivates skills that are employable across a range of sectors. These include the abilities to:

• Work independently, creatively, and to deadlines.
• Conduct research and explore relevant existing knowledge.
• Analyse, contextualise, and interpret complex ideas and materials.
• Synthesise and evaluate information against a background of uncertainty.
• Solve problems through logical reasoning.
• Present findings and opinions in a clear, structured manner.
• Engage in collaborative and constructive discussion.

Assessment

Formative

Students will be given developmental feedback, orally delivered, throughout the course.

Summative

Feedback

Students will receive formative and summative feedback in a variety of ways, written (e.g. marked up on assignments, through email or the VLE) or oral (e.g. as part of interactive teaching sessions or in office hours).

Indicative Reading

Foot, Philippa, ‘The Problem of Abortion and the Doctrine of the Double Effect’ [1967], in her Virtues and Vices (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).

Marx, Karl, selections from Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts (‘Estranged Labour’, ‘Private Property and Communism’, ‘The Meaning of Human Requirements’), in Robert C. Tucker (ed.), The Marx-Engels Reader (New York: Norton, 1972).

Heidegger, Martin, ‘The Question Concerning Technology’, in The Question Concerning Technology, and Other Essays, trans. William Lovitt (New York/London: Harper and Row, 1977).

Mills, Charles, The Racial Contract (Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press, 1997), section I: ‘Overview’.

Taylor, Charles, ‘The Politics of Recognition’, in Taylor et al., Multiculturalism and the Politics of Recognition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992).

Anscombe, G. E. M., ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’, Philosophy 124 (1958).

Thomson, Judith Jarvis, ‘Killing, Letting Die and the Trolley Problem’, The Monist 59:2 (1976).

Korsgaard, Christine M., ‘Two Distinctions in Goodness’, The Philosophical Review 92:2 (1983).

Srinivasan, Amia, ‘Stop the Robot Apocalypse’, London Review of Books, 24 September 2015.

Indicative Topics

• The good and goodness
• Duty
• Consequence
• Virtue
• Contract and history
• The authority of the state
• Alienation
• The ethics of technology
• The ‘robot apocalypse’

Version History