Course title in Estonian
Eetika ja poliitikafilosoofia
Course title in English
Ethics and Political Philosophy
Assessment form
Examination
lecturer of 2024/2025 Autumn semester
Not opened for teaching. Click the study programme link below to see the nominal division schedule.
lecturer of 2024/2025 Spring semester
Not opened for teaching. Click the study programme link below to see the nominal division schedule.
Course aims
The course introduces students to key political and moral thinkers, theories, and concepts of ethics and political philosophy.The students will learn how to use these concepts and theories to analyze contemporary social and political problems.
Brief description of the course
The course introduces the Western tradition of political and moral philosophy, from Thucydides to the present through a close reading of some of its key texts, by Machiavelli, Rousseau, Marx, Arendt, Williams and others. These texts are read and examined against some of the central political and social controversies, such as: What is power? How can it be achieved? What is freedom? How can it be achieved? What is politics? Does might equal right, if yes, when, if not, why not? What is evil – and why do we participate in it?
Learning outcomes in the course
Upon completing the course the student:
- is familiar with basic concepts and theories of ethics and political philosophy;
- is able to apply these in order to analyze a set of historical and contemporary political, social and ethical problems;
- is able to independently analyze more general problems of ethics and political philosophy.
Study programmes containing that course