Sylabus
Week 1
Introduction to the course (Linking Ethics and Economics. Institutions, Organizations and Ethics)
Consequentialist x Categorical Reasoning
Ethical Pre-Understanding of Real Situations
Empiricist Ethics (Empiricism. Hedonism. David Hume. Utilitarianism)
Moral reasoning: sound and valid arguments
Utility in Economic Models
What is Ethics? (Ethics as Practical Philosophy. Forms of Ethics)
Required Reading:
Max Weber: Politics as Vocation (Can be found on web) e.g. http://anthropos-lab.net/wp/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Weber-Politics-as-a-Vocation.pdf
Week 2
Philosophy - Selected Topics
Philosophy of Science
Philosophy of Social Science
Exercising of moral reasoning on Legality of Drugs
Required Reading:
John Stuart Mill - Utilitarianism (e.g. https://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/mill1863.pdf )
Optional Readings: http://web.uncg.edu/dcl/courses/viceCrime/m6/nadelmann%20-%20the%20case%20for%20legalization.htm https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/against-the-legalization-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
Required Reading:
Milton Friedman - The Methodology of Positive Economics (e.g. https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnx0c3puZ2F3b25nfGd4OjE3MDM2MDQ3OWRmZWE1NTY )
Optional Readings: http://spot.colorado.edu/~heathwoo/Phil160,Fall02/thomson.htm http://faculty.polytechnic.org/gfeldmeth/45.marquis.pdf
Week 4
From Personal to Social and Economic Ethics
Human Person in Human Relations Human Relations in Institutional Intermediation
Social and Economic ethics
Comparison of methodological and theoretical bases of Neoclasical Synthesis and Postkeynesian Economics
Exercising of moral reasoning on migration
Required Reading:
Ludwig von Mises: Human Action - Introduction (Economics and Praxeology, The Epistemological Problem of a General Theory of Human Action, Economic Theory and the Practice of Human Action, Résumé) (e.g. https://cdn.mises.org/Human%20Action_3.pdf )
Optional Readings: http://www.garretthardinsociety.org/articles_pdf/living_on_a_lifeboat.pdf http://www.nytimes.com/1999/09/05/magazine/the-singer-solution-to-world-poverty.html
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
Required Reading:
Friedrich August von Hayek: Law, legislation and Liberty - Chapter 7 (General Welfare and Particular Purposes) (e.g. https://libsa.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/hayek-law-legislation-and-liberty.pdf )
Optional Readings: https://www.jefftk.com/rachels-2013-immorality-having-children.pdf http://users.manchester.edu/Facstaff/SSNaragon/Online/texts/425/Sen,%20PropertyHunger.pdf
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
Required Reading:
CFA Institute Code of Ethics and Standards of Professional Conducts (just 2 pages) (please find on https://www.cfainstitute.org/pages/index.aspx under EthicsAndStandards)
Optional Readings: http://www2.hawaii.edu/~freeman/courses/phil100/14.%20The%20Ethics%20of%20War%20and%20Peace.pdf https://www.dissentmagazine.org/wp-content/files_mf/1428085978JohnRawls.pdf
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
Required Reading:
Immanuel Kant, Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals (1785) (e.g. https://cpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/blog.nus.edu.sg/dist/c/1868/files/2012/12/Kant-Groundwork-ng0pby.pdf )
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
Required Reading:
Karl Raimund Popper: The Open Society and Its Enemies Vol. 1 - Chapter 1 (Historicism and the Myth of Destiny) and Chapter 9 (Estheticism, Radicalism and Utopianism) (e.g. on https://epdf.pub/the-open-society-and-its-enemies-the-spell-of-platoa93dec0c92690f48572982c5940e421739524.html (download as Full Text)
Optional Readings: http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2002/11/27/0000184966 http://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1163&context=facpub
Week 9:
Anotace
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.