Postgraduate Course: Meta-Ethics (MSc) (PHIL11043)
Course Outline
| School | School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This course will introduce students to central questions in meta-ethics. Topics covered vary from year to year and will be described in the Learn page. |
| Course description |
The philosophical study of ethics can be divided into three main areas: normative ethics, practical ethics, and metaethics. Normative ethics seeks general accounts of right / wrong and good / bad; practical ethics seeks to answer specific practical questions from an ethical point of view. By contrast, metaethics prescinds from these first-order questions to ask second-order questions about the 'status of morality'. Core issues in metaethics arise in each of the following areas as applied to morality: (a) metaphysics, (b) epistemology, (c) the philosophy of language, and (d) the philosophy of mind. In this course, we consider several traditional metaethical theories, including nonnaturalism, the error-theory, fictionalism, expressivism, and naturalism. We will also consider more contemporary theories that don't fit well into the more traditional categories. These include so-called 'hybrid theories,' constructivist theories, and pragmatist theories.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | Students MUST NOT also be taking
Ethics (PHIL11182)
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Other requirements | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2023/24, Available to all students (SV1)
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Quota: None |
| Course Start |
Semester 1 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Lecture Hours 22,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
174 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
One essay (100%)
Word limit: 2700 minimum / 3000 words maximum (excluding references) |
| Feedback |
Students have the opportunity to submit a formative essay. The essay cannot be draft of the summative essay but it can be on the same topic. |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- understand the most important positions in contemporary meta-ethics
- enhance their philosophical skills, through pursuing contemporary questions at an advanced level
- formulate questions and positions of relevance in meta-ethics and write a critical paper on a question in meta-ethics
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Reading List
| Reading list will depend on the topics focused on each year. The full details will be in the course guide on LEARN. |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Research, critical analysis, argumentation skills (written and oral), critical reading skills |
| Keywords | Metaethics,Moral Realism,Moral Anti-realism,non naturalism,naturalism,error theory |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Prof Michael Ridge
Tel: (0131 6)50 3657
Email: |
Course secretary | Miss Sabina Ali
Tel: (0131 6) 50 4400
Email: |
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