This unit explores important contemporary debates in ethics, focusing in particular on the application and role of ethical theory in lived moral life. We begin with a consideration of influential challenges to consequentialism, which claim that it is self-defeating, leads to moral schizophrenia, and is incompatible with important moral goods like integrity and friendship. We then consider virtue ethics, focusing on its characterisation of human flourishing, its capacity to be action-guiding, and the implications of the dirty hands problem posed when virtuous agents confront tragic moral dilemmas. Finally we consider challenges to the very notion of moral character. Scepticism about the... -- Course Website
Instructor: Dr Mianna Lotz
Prerequisites: 39cp or admission to GDipArtsÂ
