LPHIL7258 Political and Ethical Ideas Across History Course Descriptor

Course Overview

This course covers key political and ethical ideas across history. The course will include some topics, texts, or figures from outside the Western philosophical canon.

The kinds of topics discussed include: conceptions of virtue, moral agency and rationality, freedom, equality, civil disobedience and the state.  The relationship between technology and political/ethical thought will be discussed. 

It should be noted that the figures, eras, and philosophical topics covered in this course may vary – and the indicative readings/ topics below are just that, indicative.

Learning Outcomes

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

Knowledge and Understanding

Subject-Specific Skills

Transferable and Professional 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 course 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 backdrop of uncertainty.
• Solve problems through logical reasoning.
• Present findings and opinions in a clear, structured manner, whether orally or in writing.
• Engage in collaborative and constructive discussion.

Assessment

Formative

Students will be formatively assessed during the course by means of set assignments. These do not count towards the end of year results, but will provide students with developmental feedback, both written and oral.

Summative

Assessment will be in one form:

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

Note: Comprehensive and current reading lists for courses are produced annually in the Course Syllabus or other documentation provided to students; the indicative reading list provided below is used as part of the approval/modification process only.

The reading list may vary for this course, depending on which aspects of the history of ethics and political thought are  focused on.

The Mozi, trans. Johnston (Columbia University Press)

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. W. D. Ross (Oxford University Press)

Locke, John, Second Treatise of Government

Kant, Immanuel, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (trans. Mary Gregor, Cambridge University Press)

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, The Discourses and Other Early Political Writings, ed. V. Gourevitch (Cambridge University Press)

Wollstonecraft, Mary, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

James, C. L. R., The Black Jacobins

Mill, John Stuart, On Liberty

Beauvoir, Simone de, The Ethics of Ambiguity

Foot, Philippa, Virtues and Vices

Hayek, F. A., The Road to Serfdom

Wiredu, Kwasi, Conceptual Decolonization in African Philosophy

Bostrom, Nick, Superintelligence

Pasquinelli, Matteo, The Eye of the Master: A Social History of Artificial Intelligence

Indicative Topics

• Virtue
• Autonomy
• Social contract
• Civil disobedience
• Liberty
• Equality
• Freedom

Version History