PHIL10040

This module will introduce students to the philosophical subject of ethics. We’re all familiar with ethics: we make ethically-loaded decisions and judgements every day; we ethically criticise other people; we feel the ethical emotions of pride and shame and remorse; we deliberate ethically about whether we should do the ‘right thing’; we try to become ethically better people; we fight for ethically admirable political causes. So there is an important sense that ethics is thoroughly familiar; it is not a field of expertise like other areas of philosophy or like other subjects in the university. What philosophy can do, however, is clarify what is going on, clarify what the ethical concepts mean exactly, and to try to resolve ethical disagreements and perplexities where ethical intuitions conflict.

The textbook for the module is: Bennett, C. (2015) What is this thing called ethics. 2nd ed. An electronic version of the book is available through the UCD Library portal.

This module is taught in both the autumn and the spring trimesters, and students are welcome in either. The teaching staff and the content will differ slightly, but the assessment will be the same.