Applied and Professional Ethics (Online Distance Learning) – (M.A.)

Contents

To gain the Masters degree, you’ll study eight modules, and write a dissertation. You can choose to replace some of the modules with a short project module. It’s also possible to gain a Postgraduate Diploma if you choose not to write a dissertation.

1. Introduction to Ethics

This module introduces some of the central concerns that are prominent in ethical discussion. These include moral psychology, duty or obligation, the good human life (or well-being or happiness), the importance of consequences, and virtues and vices such as truthfulness, justice, courage, self-control, cowardice, meanness or foolishness. Students will consider a range of philosophical approaches to these matters, and consider how they relate to one another, or differ.

2. Professional Issues I

This module introduces the concept of professional ethics, and introduces students to some of the core topics. The central question that the students will address is that of whether professional ethics is distinctive: is it just ethics, but focusing on professions, or is the role of being a professional ethically significant in its own right, such that it is not possible to really engage with professional ethics without first considering what it is to be a professional? Students will also consider the role of professional codes of conduct, and the relationship between personal and professional life.

3. Agents, Virtue and Responsibility

This module seeks to understand what is involved in assessing people and their responsibilities, and how these assessments can be justified. Ethics is sometimes a matter of looking at situations and options in answer to the question, “what should I do?” But it is also sometimes a matter of assessing people and their characters. We might ask whether a candidate for a job is sufficiently honest, impartial, courageous, tactful, sensitive, just or fair-minded to perform the role well. Equally, when someone asks for a pay rise, or faces disciplinary action or criminal prosecution, it makes sense to ask whether they deserve it. More generally, there is the suggestion that an organisation’s culture can breed virtues of cooperation, transparency and honesty on the one hand, or can breed corruption, secrecy and self-interest on the other.

4. Professional Issues II: Privacy and Confidentiality

This module focuses on ethical issues relating to privacy and confidentiality, addressing the topics both from a theoretical viewpoint, and also considering problems in applied ethics where considerations of privacy and/or confidentiality are central. This includes questions such as how the right to privacy should be understood, and how far it extends; whether some people give up their right to privacy (by becoming celebrities, for example); whether confidentiality should be limited or absolute; and how approaches to privacy and confidentiality differ across professional domains.

5. Professional Issues III: Consent and Contracts

This module explores the role of consent and contract in creating and explaining obligations or rights. It is often thought that the consent of a competent person authorises third parties to act in the way(s) to which the competent person has consented, giving others rights over a person and imposing an obligation on a person to act in the way to which they have consented, such as in the case of employment contracts. Furthermore, others argue that only consent can legitimate the exercise of state power and the application of law. This brings into question whether private individuals and corporations have an obligation to obey the law and comply with the state institutions that regulate so much of our lives and restrict many of our actions. Yet others argue that our obligation to obey the state is based not on consent but on a social or implicit contract conditional on the provision of benefits. Furthermore, some believe that this model can be extended to explain the legitimacy and obligations of business and possibly other institutions such as the police or armed forces.

6. Justice: Fairness, Equality and Diversity

This module explores what justice requires and so what a just society should look like, in terms of how it distributes its resources and the rights it recognizes and upholds. Different accounts place different demands on individuals, institutions and corporations in terms of restricting the pursuit of their interests or activities, and rights over their assets. Rights have a role in moral theory that extends beyond their contribution to accounts of justice, but there is disagreement as to precisely what that role is. While some argue that rights are central and the weightiest of moral considerations (they function like trumps in any moral dispute), others disagree. So this module also explores rights more generally – what is a right, what justifies a claim to have a right to something, who can have rights (individuals or also groups or corporations), and are they more weighty than other moral considerations? This will involve looking at the role of interests, harms and benefits in grounding moral claims or justifications for breaching rights, including what is often called the public interest.

7. Global and Environmental Ethics

This module examines a series of debates in environmental ethics. It is now a widely held view that individuals have some obligation to live in an environmentally-friendly way and that governments and nations ought to be tackling the challenges of environmental degradation and global warming. It is widely (although not universally) accepted within the business community that businesses have some obligation to limit environmental harm caused by their operations. It is much more rarely investigated why these claims are true (if they are). Similarly, although at a practical level individuals, organisations and governments are regularly engaged in balancing environmental concerns against other types of concern (convenience, cost, etc.), it is very rare for the question of how this balance should properly be struck to receive serious and rigorous consideration.

8. Business Ethics

This module will examine issues such as the relationship between the nature of business and ethics in business; different approaches to business ethics, such as stockholder and stakeholder theories; and the nature and extent of Corporate (Social) Responsibility to individuals, communities, and the environment. It will also address issues of fairness or justice in the supply chain; hiring and firing; equality and diversity; responsible marketing practices; and ethical issues arising in international business.

Funding details

Scholarships

The IDEA CETL is able to fund a number of scholarships to cover fees for studying on the online MA and postgraduate diploma in Applied and Professional Ethics, commencing in October 2012 (Induction in September 2012).

Up to six scholarships will be available. These will cover a proportion of the academic fees, mostly up to half the value, more rarely up to the full value. For part-time students (who take the course over two years) the scholarship is subject to review at the end of the first year.

Scholarships will be awarded on the basis of academic excellence, which will be assessed by considering the candidate’s application to the University and supporting documents, and the interview conducted as part of the admissions process.

Eligibility

All applicants to the Masters and postgraduate diploma degrees in Applied and Professional Ethics are eligible to apply for the scholarships, including international applicants and part-time students. Students who have previously submitted an application, including those who have been offered a place, are also encouraged to apply.

How to apply

Applicants should first complete an application to study at the university, and then complete a separate shcolarship application form. For further details of these scholarsips and how to apply, please see our website.