Syllabus
Week 1
Introduction to the course (Linking Ethics and Economics. Institutions, Organizations and Ethics)
What is the Right Thing to Do? - Episode 1-1 (Consequentialist x Categorical Reasoning)
Ethical Pre-Understanding of Real Situations
Empiricist Ethics (Empiricism. Hedonism. David Hume. Utilitarianism)
Moral reasoning
What is the Right Thing to Do? - Episode 1-2 (Utilitarianism)
Utility in Economic Models
What is Ethics? (Ethics as Practical Philosophy. Forms of Ethics)
Week 2
Philosophy - Selected Topics
Philosophy of Science
Philosophy of Social Science
Exercising of moral reasoning on Legality of Drugs
Week 3
Philosophy of Social Science - Continued
Macrosocial Science and Functionalism
Moral Questions and Social Science
Philosophy of Economics
Exercising of moral reasoning on abortion
Week 4
From Personal to Social and Economic Ethics
Human Person in Human Relations
Human Relations in Institutional Intermediation
Social and Economic Ethics
Week 5
Theory of Choice
Immanuel Kant and Categorical Reasoning
Thomas Aquinas and Conscience
Exercising of moral reasoning on "helping to the poor"
Comparison of different approaches: Ethical Egoism, Social Contract approach, Utilitarianism and Christian approach
Week 6
Four Levels for Judgement of Rules
Iterative Relation between Individual Rules and Social Norms
Psyche – Psychological and Philosophical Insight
Social Stability - Giving Reasons to Ethical Norms
Are there some universal human rights?
Exercising of moral reasoning on the ethics of war and peace
Week 7
Constitutional Economics I
Origin
Constitutional Contract
The Contractarian Birth of State
Postconstitutional Contract
Public Goods and Common Resources
Selfrealization and Freedom I
Exercising of financial analysts ethics
Ethics Codes
CFA Ethics Code
CFA Standards of Professional Conduct
Week 8
Constitutional Economics II
Status Quo
Contractual Changes in the Status Quo
Dual Capacity of State
Order as Public Goods
Order as Public Capital Goods
Are we not governed too much?
What can we do with that?
Redistributive Role of the State
Selfrealization and Freedom II
Guilt and Shame
Exercising of moral reasoning on terrorism and torture
Week 9:
Virtue
Fairness, Labour Market and Inflation
Mainstream Approach
Postkeynesian Approach
Labour Demand
Labour Supply
Competing Claims Model of Inflation
Exercising of moral reasoning on animals and environmentalist ethics
Week 10
Justice
Happiness
Sense
Selected Economic Topics with Stressed Ethical Dimension:
System of Natioonal Accounts and Distribution of GDP
Measuring Income, Job and Wealth Distribution
Economics of Happiness
New Institutional Economics and Trust
Economics and Family
Economics and Gender
Discussion of homework 3
Exercising of moral reasoning on family, marriage and household
Week 11 8:00 - 9:20: Clarifying midterm exam questions - based on needs expressed by students
Midterm Exam
Week 12
Miscellaneous
Marxist Ethics
Psyche once more
Psychoanalysis
Etology and Konrad Lorenz
Nietsche and his hammer
Material value ethics
Existentionalist Ethics
Ethics of discours
Ex ante discussion of homework 4
Exercising of moral reasoning on ICT development
Annotation
Because of bad epidemiologic situation, we are fully online this semester, using Zoom, in the scheduled time. There are no required prerequisites for this course.
This course is interdisciplinary: many currently relevant social, political and economic topics are covered using concepts from philosophy, methodology, ethics, social sciences, economics and finance. Relevant topics are, e.g.:
Legality of drugs
Abortion
Migration
Helping to the poor
Ethics of war and peace
Ethics Codes - especially CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst) Ethics Code
Terrorism and torture
Animals and Ecological Ethics
Family, marriage, household
The death penalty
Euthanasia
Ethics of civil disobediance
Affirmative action and discrimination
Adoption to gay or lesbian pairs
Genetical engineering
Selling organs for transplantation
Course Learning Objective:
By the end of this course students will be able to discuss different topics with understanding of relevant concepts from philosophy, methodology, ethics, social sciences, economics and finance.