Politics, Philosophy and Economics BSc

Core modules:

Principles in Politics, Philosophy & Economics (PPE)

This module is designed to provide students on the PPE course with an understanding of how politics, philosophy, and economics are interrelated, as well as articulate the reasons why PPE is such an exciting interdisciplinary field of study. It will cover key theories and approaches in politics, philosophy, and economics that provide the foundation for the study of PPE as an interdisciplinary degree.

20 credits

Economy, Society and Public Policy (ESPP)

ESPP is for students who are interested in the big policy problems facing societies today; inequality within and between countries, environmental sustainability, the future of work, health and wellbeing, wealth creation and financial instability and so on.
This module has been created specifically for social science students who are NOT economists, but who want to understand how the economy works, and how it can be made to work better.
The module will give you an understanding of the ways in which we can interpret the evidence on the social and economic issues of today, and formulate appropriate public policy interventions. We emphasise issues of power, social norms, fairness, institutions, etc, and illustrate throughout with real-world data.

20 credits

Optional politics modules - one from:

British Politics

You will be introduced to the key concepts and debates that have shaped British politics with an emphasis on history, institutions and culture.

Each lecture will focus on a specific element of British politics, with subsequent and linked seminars providing an opportunity to deepen this knowledge by looking at critical case studies or official reviews.

This module provides key employability skills and practice based knowledge through a focus on the theory and practice of political decision-making processes and the challenges of implementing policy.

20 credits

Introduction to Global Political Economy

Global political economy (GPE) is a field of study that investigates the interaction between political and economic forces in contemporary and historical capitalism. You will consider key mainstream and critical theories.

You will be introduced to major processes of trade, production and exploitation, sketching the power relations of the global economy by using examples of contemporary production in different industries. You will also consider how the political economy of race, class and gender have structured the global economy through histories of colonisation and decolonisation, from the fourteenth to the twenty-first century.

20 credits

The World's Wicked Problems

The World's Wicked Problems serves as an introduction to International Relations as a discipline. 

Throughout this module you will engage in key international relations concepts and discussions, including migration, climate change, poverty and global inequalities, sexual violence and armed conflict.

As an introductory module, you have the opportunity to develop the tools needed to understand, analyse and reflect on in-depth theoretical and empirical international relations which shall continue to support you throughout your degree.

20 credits

Optional philosophy modules - one or two from (20 credits):

Philosophy of Religion

Religious teachings and practices raise many philosophical questions. For example, how should we understand the nature of God for purposes of evaluating evidence for and against God's existence? Are there persuasive arguments for believing God does exist, or for believing God doesn't? Could the universe itself in some sense be divine? Is there any evidence for thinking that people can survive the death of their physical bodies? Does the pervasiveness of religious disagreement provide support for suspending judgment about religious claims in general? Does it make any sense to follow a religion without believing what it teaches? This module will interrogate philosophical work bearing on questions such as these.

10 credits

Reason and Argument

Arguments are everywhere - in our newspapers, on our television screens and radios, in books and academic papers, on blogs and other websites. We argue with our friends, families, teachers and taxi drivers. These arguments are often important; they help us to decide what to do, what to believe, whom to vote for, what car to buy, what career path to follow, or where we should attend university (and what we should study). The ability to recognise, evaluate and produce arguments is therefore immeasurably valuable in every aspect of life.

This course will teach you how to recognise an argument, how to understand it, how to evaluate and criticise it, and how to produce your own. Students in this module will learn how to extract an argument from a complex text, how to uncover hidden assumptions, and how to recognise and critique bad reasoning

10 credits

History of Philosophical Ideas

The history of philosophy is made up of a series of debates between competing philosophical traditions and schools: for example, idealists argue with realists, rationalists with empiricists. And at different times, distinctive philosophical movements have dominated the discussion, such as pragmatism, existentialism, phenomenology, analytic philosophy, and critical theory. This module will introduce you to some of these central movements and traditions in the history of philosophy from Plato onwards, and the key philosophical concepts and issues that they have brought in to western thought.

10 credits

Death

This module is mainly about death itself . What is death? What happens to us when we die? Could there be an afterlife? Would it be a good thing if there were? What is it about death that we dislike so much, or that makes it bad? Is it rational, or even possible to fear death? What is the right attitude towards our own death? Do we have moral duties towards the dead? The course will clarify these questions and attempt to answer them. Readings will be taken from both historical and contemporary sources.

10 credits

Writing Philosophy

Philosophical writing is a skill that you, the student, must hone early on in order to succeed in your degree. It is also a transferable skill that will serve you in your post-academic career. Philosophical writing combines the general virtues of clarity, organisation, focus and style found in other academic writing with particular philosophical virtues; namely, the ability to expose the implicit assumptions of analysed texts and to make explicit the logical structure of one's own and other people's arguments. A precondition of philosophical writing is a unique form of textual analysis that pays particular attention to its argumentative structure. In this module you will learn and practice philosophical writing. You will learn how to read in preparation for philosophical writing, learn how to plan an essay, learn how to rework your drafts and learn how to use feedback constructively.  Short writing exercises will help you hone specific writing skills. You will bring these skills together by writing a number of complete essays. The lectures in the course will be split between lectures on the art of writing and lectures on philosophical topics in the domain of fact and value. Essay topics will be based on the topical lectures and their associated readings.

20 credits

Mind and World

This module is an introduction to a range of topics in epistemology, metaphysics, and the philosophy of mind. In the first half of the module we consider questions such as: How should we understand knowledge? What implications does cognitive and cultural diversity have for our understanding of knowledge? Should we privilege some points of view? Should we trust others? Can we wrong them if we don't? And what should we say about disagreement? In the second half of the module we ask questions such as: Is the mind a physical thing? Can a machine have a mind? Can you survive the destruction of your body? Do you have free will? And can a machine be responsible for its own actions?

20 credits

Philosophy of Sex

Sex is one of the most basic human motivators, of fundamental importance in many people's lives, and a topic of enormous moral, religious, and political contention. No surprise, then, that it turns out to be of great philosophical interest. We will discuss moral issues related to sex' asking when we might be right to judge a particular sex act to be morally problematic; and what political significance (if any) sex has. We will also discuss metaphysical issues, such as the surprisingly difficult questions of what exactly sex is and what a sexual orientation is. Throughout our study, we will draw both on philosophical sources and on up-to-date contemporary information.

10 credits

Philosophy of Science - Why Trust Science?

Science plays an important role in modern society. We trust science on a day to day basis as we navigate our worlds. What is about science that makes it so trustworthy? Why is science a good guide for understanding the world? The aim of this half-module is to introduce some of the philosophical issues that arise in science and through reflecting on science. Most of the questions considered concern the epistemology of scientific knowledge and methodology: what are scientific theories, what counts as evidence for these theories, what is the relationship between observation and theory, is there a scientific method, what distinguishes science from other ways of understanding the world, and how does the social structure of science help or hinder science in studying the world. This module aims to introduce these questions as philosophical issues in their own right and within in the context of the history of the philosophy of science.

10 credits

Ethics and Society

This module introduces students to some core questions in ethics, political philosophy, and social philosophy. We ask questions such as: What is a good life for you? What is a morally good life? Does being virtuous matter? What kind of moral consideration do we owe to non-human animals and the environment? Turning to political philosophy, we consider how societies should be organised if they are to realise values such as freedom, equality, and community. How should we understand these values? And what role might the state play in promoting (or undermining) them? We also look at some questions in social philosophy. For example: What are social groups? And when and why are social norms oppressive?

20 credits

Truth, Reality and Virtual Reality

This module examines the idea that there is an objective reality to which the things we say and believe are answerable, which makes some claims true and others false. The emphasis is not so much on the question of whether and how we know things, but on metaphysical questions concerning truth and reality. 'What is Truth?' is one of these questions. Different attempts to define truth - including the Correspondence Theory of truth and the Pragmatic Theory of truth will be examined. Another question the course will tackle is the question of whether relativism about reality can be successfully refuted. And the module will address arguments relating to virtual reality, including arguments to the conclusion that what we think of as the real world is in fact a simulation, and arguments that call into question the supposed difference between reality and virtual reality. There are political and moral questions that hinge on answers to our metaphysical questions. The aim of the module is to introduce theories, concepts and frameworks that will be helpful to attempts to grapple with the metaphysical questions and further questions that hinge on them.

10 credits

Optional economics modules - one from:

Classical and Contemporary Thinkers in Economics

This module introduces students to a range of classical and contemporary economists, including the founders of the discipline and some Nobel Prize winners, past and present. For each economist, a senior member of the department will give a short biography, outline their contributions to the discipline of economics and the development of the subject, and explain how they have influenced their own thinking and research that is undertaken in economics today. Examples of the contribution of these economists to a range of economic issues will be used to illustrate the continuing relevance and application of their ideas.

20 credits

Economic History of Britain and the Modern World

This module provides an introduction to the economic history of Britain and the evolution of the global economy in the context of modern theories of economic growth and development and present-day debates about poverty, inequality and North-South relations.

20 credits

Plus one from:

Mathematical Methods for Economics 1

This is a core module designed for students who do not have an A-Level in Mathematics or equivalent. It will provide you with specialist support and training to introduce you to relevant key elements of maths taught at A-Level. You will learn to apply these elements in ways that are essential for problem solving in economics. The tools you gain from this module will be used throughout the rest of your degree.

20 credits

Mathematical Methods for Economics 2

This module is designed for students with an A-Level in Mathematics (or an equivalent qualification). You will revisit key mathematical tools covered in A-Level Mathematics (such as differential calculus) and learn to use them to formulate and solve problems in economics and finance. You will also be introduced to other techniques that are essential for problem solving in economics. These tools will be used throughout the rest of your degree. The topics covered include: sequences/series and the economics of finance, functions, univariate optimization, elasticity, integration, multivariate optimization, constrained optimization, and matrix algebra.

20 credits

Core modules:

Policy Analysis and Programme Evaluation

This module will teach students about the methods of policy analysis and programme evaluation, including (but not limited to) randomised-control trials (RCTs) and methods of causal inference. Students will also learn how to read and critique published research, as well as carry out these techniques using software.

20 credits

Case Studies in Politics, Philosophy and Economics (PPE)

This module will present students with in-depth, real-world case studies of policies implemented to tackle problems in PPE such as climate change, healthcare, inequality, and crime. Students will analyse how organisations developed and implemented specific policies, and (with hindsight) evaluate their efficacy. Guest speakers may be invited to present selected examples of policy analysis and/or programme evaluation from their respective organisations.

20 credits

Intermediate Microeconomics

This module builds on Level 1 modules in microeconomics and mathematical economics, using the mathematical training to allow a more rigorous investigation of the principles of microeconomics. It aims to develop an understanding and ability to undertake economic analysis of models of the behaviour and interaction of economic agents (consumers, firms and government) in a market economy, the functioning of different types of industries, decision making under uncertainty and economic welfare.

20 credits

Intermediate Macroeconomics

The aims of this course are to provide firm grounding in the analytical tools of modern macroeconomics; to use these tools to understand critically the conduct of economic policy nationally and internationally. The course builds on level 1 modules in macroeconomics. The main subject areas covered are: Basic macroeconomic models: consumption/leisure choice, closed economy one period-macro models, models of search and unemployment; Savings, investment and government deficits: consumption/savings choice (two-period model), credit market imperfections, real intertemporal model with investment; Money and business cycles: flexible price models, New Keynesian economics (sticky prices), inflation; International macroeconomics: international trade, money in open economy; Economic growth: Malthus and Solow growth models, convergence, endogenous growth model.

20 credits

Optional politics modules - one from:

The Political Economy of Global Capitalism

In this module you will explore the political dynamics that underpin the organisation of capitalism.

You will study major issues within the global economy, ranging from the contested rise of neoliberal globalisation to the gendered and racialised patterns of work, production, inequality, and (financial) crises. You will investigate the history and contemporary operation of capitalism as a mode of production, and examine how capitalist social relations affect individuals, communities, states and the environment.  

The module will provide detailed knowledge of the political economy of capitalism and expose you to the tools to critically analyse it. You will become more familiar with cross-disciplinary methods as the module draws on a wide range of scholarship drawn from (International) Political Economy, Sociology, Geography and History. Finally, through a critical media analysis assessment, you will  analyse current real-life developments with the help of theories and concepts.

20 credits

Political Theory in Practice

This module explores key debates in political theory, and the implications of those debates for current political practice. It first examines debates surrounding justice, and what these mean for welfare and taxation policies. It then analyses disputes over the meaning of well-being, and their implications for policies surrounding disability and health. It introduces students to different ideas of toleration, and how these influence laws on free speech. It also explores controversies over multiculturalism, and in particular its impact upon women. Finally, it examines care ethics and its implications for how we value the environment.

20 credits

Africa in the World

Africa has long been treated as a marginal part of the world, both historically and in relation to contemporary global politics. Throughout this module you will challenge this misconception by exploring the crucial role that Africa plays in the current world order and the way it has historically evolved.

You will be introduced to the political, economic, socio-cultural, and military of Africa's international relations, familiarising yourself with the key actors, institutions and processes involved. You will assess how the slave trade and colonialism have shaped the modern world order, the global reverberations of African independence movements and pan-Africanism, and how continuing unequal relations are expressed in the politics of debt and military intervention. You will also analyse Africa's relations to emerging global powers.

By the end of the module you will have used a range of theoretical and conceptual tools from the field of international relations, drawing to a considerable extent on the work of African thinkers.

20 credits

The Making of The Modern Middle East

You will examine the key political, economic and social dynamics that have shaped and have been shaped by the politics in the contemporary Middle East. Drawing on insights not only from politics but also from history, sociology, anthropology, and political economy, you will explore historical developments and political themes in the region.

The module content will encourage the development of the skills and knowhow to use the 'politics from below' perspective, listen for multiple discourses and silences, and contextualise these voices and silences historically, politically, economically and geographically in wider regional and global power structures.

By the end of the module, you will have used the conceptual and analytical skills needed to de-exceptionalise your understanding of politics in the Middle East.

20 credits

Optional philosophy modules - one from:

Feminism

Feminists have famously claimed that the personal is political. This module takes up various topics with that methodological idea in mind: the family, cultural critique, language. We examine feminist methodologies - how these topics might be addressed by a feminism that is inclusive of all women - and also turn attention to social structures within which personal choices are made - capitalism, and climate crisis .

20 credits

The Rationalists

This module is an introduction to the major works of Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, and Kant. Their work is both fascinating in itself and enormously influential today. The emphasis will be on topics in metaphysics and epistemology, such as whether there is a god, whether you and I are material or immaterial, whether the physical or even the mental world is real or apparent, whether anything could have been otherwise than it is, and what it is possible to know. Readings will be mainly from primary sources. Discussion will focus on philosophical problems rather than on historical context.

20 credits

Ethics: From Theory to Practice

Ethical values shape our world and the lives we lead - from how we relate to our friends and community, to our social and political attitudes, to the aspirations and goals that guide our life choices. But ethics is also challenging. When our values clash, or we face unfamiliar problems, or we reflect on the objectionable values of people in the past, it becomes unclear what to do. Ethical theories attempt to help us solve these problems by giving a precise, unified and systematic account of moral values, ideals and duties.

This module introduces students to a range of contemporary and historical ethical theories. We discuss six broad approaches to ethical theorising, each centred on a core unifying value: altruism, relationships, freedom, agreements, rights and excellence. In doing so we will encounter theories such as Utilitarianism, Contractualism and Feminist Care Ethics, and the ideas of philosophers including JS Mill, Harriet Taylor, Simone de Beauvoir, Immanuel Kant, Thomas Hobbes, Mary Wollestonecraft, Aristotle and Freidrich Nietzsche.

Students will learn how to articulate the key concepts and theories in philosophical ethics, and to evaluate, compare and criticise different approaches to ethical theorising. They will also learn to employ philosophical concepts to uncover and analyse the ethical values and presuppositions made in contemporary moral and social debates.

20 credits

Philosophy of Mind

This module provides a survey of philosophical theories of the mind, looking at such questions as: How is consciousness possible? Why is it that vibrations in the air around us produce conscious experiences of particular auditory experiences in our minds? Why is it that electromagnetic waves hitting our retinas produce particular visual experiences in our minds? What makes our thoughts represent things in the world? What is it about your thought that cats have whiskers that makes it about cats and whiskers? What is it about your thought that there are stars in the universe too far away for any human to have perceived them that makes it about such stars? What is the relation between thoughts and conscious experiences and brain states? We'll look at a variety of answers to these and related questions and examine some of the most important and influential theories that contemporary philosophers have to offer.

20 credits

Formal Logic

The course will start by introducing some elementary concepts from set theory; along the way, we will consider some fundamental and philosophically interesting results and forms of argumentation. It will then examine the use of 'trees' as a method for proving the validity of arguments formalised in propositional and first-order logic. It will also show how we may prove a range of fundamental results about the use of trees within those logics, using certain ways of assigning meanings to the sentences of the languages which those logics employ.

20 credits

Philosophy of the Arts

This module introduces students to a broad range of issues in the philosophy of art. The first half asks 'What is art?'. It examines three approaches: expression theories, institutional accounts, and the cluster account. This is followed by two critiques focusing on the lack of women in the canon and problems surrounding 'primitive' art. The evolutionary approach to art is discussed , and two borderline cases: craft and pornography. The second half examines four issues: cultural appropriation of art, pictorial representation, aesthetic experience and the everyday, and the nature of artistic creativity.

20 credits

History of Political Philosophy

We are citizens in a democratic capitalist society, we vote and choose our representatives and our government, our representatives make laws that we must then follow. We do not only obey the laws only for fear of being punished; we believe that our system of government is just, and that it is just for us to obey the laws. We believe that - by and large - we live in a just society. Do we? What justifies our system of government? Are there alternative possible relations, alternative forms of citizenship; alternative forms of government, alternative ways of organising a society? Is ours the only just one?
We will look at the history of political philosophy and explore various systems of citizenship, government and economic arrangements. Our main aim will be to understand how these different systems justify or legitimise the existence of government and its authority to make and enforce laws. We will also look at the more general notion of 'justice' that accompanies and grounds these systems of government.
Two side concerns will be:-
1. The relation between a philosopher's view of ethics and her political philosophy.
2. The relation between a philosopher's view of human nature and her political philosophy.

20 credits

Political Philosophy Today

This module will investigate a broad range of contemporary topics and issues in political philosophy. Example topics include the political rights of animals and children, how we should allocate scarce health resources, whether we should ban private education, and the limits of free speech in the workplace. By studying these topics and others, students will gain a broad knowledge of the state of contemporary political philosophy, develop their ability to critically assess and discuss real-world issues, and improve their understanding of how theoretical topics in political philosophy can be applied in practical ways.

20 credits

Theory of Knowledge

The aim of the course is to provide an introduction to philosophical issues surrounding the knowledge. We will be concerned with the nature and extent of knowledge. How must a believer be related to the world in order to know that something is the case? Can knowledge be analysed in terms of more basic notions? Must our beliefs be structured in a certain way if they are to be knowledge? In considering these questions we will look at various sceptical arguments that suggest that the extent of knowledge is much less than we suppose. And we will look at the various faculties of knowledge: perception, memory, introspection, and testimony.

20 credits

Metaphysics

This course is an introduction to metaphysics. It will focus on two general themes: whether we are material things, and the nature of time. Readings will be drawn mainly from recent and contemporary sources.

20 credits

Religion and the Good Life

What, if anything, does religion have to do with a well-lived life? For example, does living well require obeying God's commands? Does it require atheism? Are the possibilities for a good life enhanced or only diminished if there is a God, or if Karma is true? Does living well take distinctive virtues like faith, mindfulness, or humility as these have been understood within religious traditions? In this module, we will examine recent philosophical work on questions like these while engaging with a variety of religions, such as Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Daoism, Islam, and Judaism.

20 credits

Environmental Justice

This module will introduce students to contemporary philosophical discussions of environmental justice at the global level. Topics to be covered may include: The nature of global environmental injustices; responsibility for global environmental problems; the relationship between global environmental challenges and other historical and contemporary injustices; fair international sharing of the costs of environmental action; the justifiability of environmental activism; the rights of indigenous peoples; fairness in global environmental decision-making; and the politics of ‘geoengineering’ the planet.

20 credits

Bioethics

Bioethics arose in response to the moral challenges thrown up by technological advances of the twentieth century. As we move through the 21st century, new moral problems are emerging, even as old one still concern us.

How should we allocate resource for medical care and research? Are there limits to what can be done to our bodies, or does consent permit everything? In a pandemic, how should we balance concerns for liberty and protecting the vulnerable? Should we try to 'enhance' human beings, or should we be happy with the way we are?

This module will introduce a range of practical bioethical problems, as well as some methods for approaching them. Our emphasis will be on doing philosophy practically, with a view to the implications of philosophical argument in the real world of healthcare, research and bioscience.

20 credits

Plato

The philosopher and mathematician A. N. Whitehead once characterised western thought as a series of footnotes to Plato. The thought of Plato and his teacher Socrates, who both lived in Greece around 400 years before the start of the Christian era, set the agenda for much subsequent philosophy and did much to define our ideas of what philosophy is. This course will introduce students to the study of the philosophy of Plato through a close and critical study of a small number of his dialogues in English translation.

20 credits

Core module:

Dissertation in Politics, Philosophy and Economics

This module requires the student to prepare, organise, research and report a piece of original work on a social science topic. The student will decide on the topic of their work and draw upon the conceptual foundations laid in the earlier parts of the programme to build their project. They will either be expected to collect original material, or to develop a conceptual, theoretical, or policy driven piece of work. In all cases students will apply the skills and knowledge from their programme to be creative and explore new ideas.

40 credits

Plus four modules from at least two groups.

Optional politics modules:

Civilisation, Empire and Hegemony

With American power seemingly all powerful today, this unit provides a rethink of the origins of great power politics/economics. Mainstream Eurocentric theories in International Relations view great power politics/economics as having universal materialist properties. And they view America and Britain as hegemons that provide global public goods for the benefit of all. This module problematises this view by revealing the differing moral foundations and 'standards of civilisation' that inform the various directions that great power can take. It examines Britain and China in the pre-1900 era, contemporary America, Japan, and the potential role of China in the coming decades.

20 credits

Corporations in Global Politics: Possibilities, Tensions, and Ambiguities

Corporations are ubiquitous, affecting everything from mundane individual consumption choices, to the investment decisions of both weak and powerful states. Importantly, their authority extends beyond the economic sphere and into the political, as they shape and execute policies and outcomes for some of the world's pressing problems.

Drawing upon international relations, political economy, and global governance literatures, you will analyse the corporation theoretically and empirically by drawing upon a diverse range of case studies from environmental sustainability and development, to war-making and peacekeeping. 

You will have the opportunity to explore the multifaceted political roles of corporations, learning to critically reflect on their implications.

20 credits

Party Politics: Competition, Strategies and Campaigns

'Party Politics' offers an in-depth examination of various issues related with parties, looking at their characteristics as well as their interactions. The module is motivated by a series of fundamental questions about parties and party systems. How and why do political parties emerge? What characterises different party families? How do parties run campaigns, and how effective are they? How do parties compete during elections, and what determines the kind of coalitions we get in government? Why do some political systems have few parties, while others many? Why do some parties appeal to voters by promising particular programs, whereas others use clientelist methods to mobilise electoral support? The module is empirical in nature, trying to evaluate theories related to party politics through the use of evidence. You will be encouraged to think critically about the approaches used and apply real-world cases to the topics under investigation. A key aspect of the module is the use of the comparative method as a way to think analytically and make inferences. You do not need to have any prior knowledge of empirical methods to take the course.

20 credits

The Ethics of Political Leadership

This course examines the ethics of political leadership. To do so, it focuses on broad and timeless questions, such as 'What is the relationship between politics and morality?' as well as more focused questions, including 'May politicians bend moral constraints in the name of political necessity?' and 'Is it always wrong for leaders to lie?'

To answer these questions, you will analyse and evaluate normative arguments on the significance and function of political leaders in contemporary politics. You will also examine competing theories of leadership in their historical and intellectual context. This module will encourage you to take a theoretical approach, using examples of political leaders to highlight strengths and weaknesses of competing theories of leadership, and to emphasise their ideological assumptions and implications.

20 credits

Animals, Ethics and Politics

Throughout this module, you will explore the key debates surrounding what we owe to animals politically. You will discuss the main debates in animal ethics and ask how they affect political practices, norms, institutions and policies. 

Particular attention will be paid to the tensions between animal welfare and other political values and goods, enabling you to explore controversial policy debates such as animal experimentation, animal agriculture, conservation and the use of animals for entertainment.

Overall, you will investigate and debate the implications of taking animals seriously for current political practice.

20 credits

Cosmopolitanism

Cosmopolitanism is the idea that the world should, in some sense, be understood as a single moral or political entity.

This module will encourage you to engage with cosmopolitanism from the perspective of normative political theory. You will be introduced to the historical origins of cosmopolitanism, from the Cynics in Ancient Greece to Immanuel Kant, before moving on to discuss the contemporary wave of cosmopolitanism theorising that began in the latter part of the twentieth century.

There are two core strands to the contemporary wave: claims about the global scope of justice, and claims about the need for global democracy. Both have come under considerable criticism as scholars ask: Is justice really global in scope, or is it an idea that belongs within the state or nation? Do we really need a global democracy? Does cosmopolitanism imply a world state? Is the whole idea of cosmopolitanism imperialistic? These are just some of the questions that you will be discussing and investigating during your seminars and lectures.

20 credits

Global Culture Wars

Cancel culture, identity politics, the war on woke… How should we make sense of the so-called 'culture wars' that are transforming politics?

Throughout this module, you will examine this topic from a global and historical perspective, investigating the contemporary politics of culture wars that are found worldwide, and the tensions that have existed in one form or another since the dawn of modernity. Topics you will study include the rise of the global right, the transnational backlash against LGBT+ rights, and how social media has shaped contemporary politics. 

As a group, we will take a step back from the commotion, scandal and outrage to trace the historical lineages of culture wars across global politics.

20 credits

Optional philosophy modules (Feminism cannot be taken if you completed it in your second year):

Global Justice

What are the demands of justice at the global level? On this module we will examine this question from the perspective of analytic Anglo-American political philosophy. We will start by looking at some debates about the nature of global justice, such as whether justice demands the eradication of global inequalities. We will then turn to various questions of justice that arise at the global level, potentially including: how jurisdiction over territory might be justified; whether states have a right to exclude would-be immigrants; whether reparations are owed for past international injustices such as colonialism; and how to identify responsibilities for combatting global injustice.

20 credits

Philosophy of Law

Law is a pervasive feature of modern societies and governs most aspects of our lives. This module is about some of the philosophical questions raised by life under a legal system. The first part of the module investigates the nature of law. Is law simply a method of social control? For example, the group calling itself Islamic State issued commands over a defined territory and backed up these commands with deadly force. Was that a legal system? Or is law necessarily concerned with justice? Do legal systems contain only rules or do they also contain underlying principles? Is 'international law' really law?
The second part of the module investigates the relationship between law and individual rights. What kinds of laws should we have? Do we have the moral right to break the law through acts of civil disobedience? What is the justification of punishment? Is there any justification for capital punishment? Are we right to legally differentiate between intended crimes (like murder) and unintended crimes (like manslaughter), or does this involve the unjustified punishment of 'thought crime'? Are we right to legally differentiate between murder and attempted murder, despite the fact that both crimes involve the same intent to kill?

20 credits

Moral Theory and Moral Psychology

This course examines the relationship of moral theory and moral psychology. We discuss the relationship of science and ethics, examine the nature of self-interest, altruism, sympathy, the will, and moral intuitions, explore psychological arguments for and against familiar moral theories including utilitarianism, virtue ethics, deontology and relativism, and confront the proposal that understanding the origins of moral thought 'debunks' the authority of ethics. In doing so, we will engage with readings from historical philosophers, including Hobbes, Butler, Hume, Smith, Kant, Mill, Nietzsche and Moore, as well as contemporary authors in philosophy and empirical psychology.

20 credits

Advanced Political Philosophy

This module will investigate a broad range of topics and issues in political philosophy and explore these questions in some detail. It will include both historical and foundational matters and recent state of the art research.

20 credits

Ancient Chinese Philosophy

This course will introduce students to ancient Chinese Philosophy through a study of some of it classical texts.

20 credits

Topics in Social Philosophy

This module will introduce students to some contemporary issues in social philosophy.

20 credits

Free Will & Religion

This module focuses on philosophical questions about the relationship between free will and theistic religions. It has often been claimed that adherents of these religions have significant motivations to affirm an incompatibilist conception of free will according to which free will is incompatible with determinism. Incompatibilist conceptions of free will, it has been argued, have benefits for the theist such as enabling them to better account for the existence of moral evil, natural evil, divine hiddenness, and traditional conceptions of hell. Yet, on the other hand, it has been argued that there is a significant tension between theistic religions and incompatibilist conceptions of free will. For example, there are tempting arguments that an incompatibilist conception of free will makes trouble for affirming traditional views about God's omniscience, freedom, and providence. We will engage in a critical examination of these and related arguments.

20 credits

Phenomenology

This module introduces students to Phenomenology - a philosophical tradition in continental European philosophy, which is closely related to Existentialism. Phenomenology seeks to understand the human condition. Its starting-point is everyday experience, where this includes both mundane and less ordinary forms of experience such as those typically associated with conditions such as schizophrenia. Whilst Phenomenology encompasses a diverse range of thinkers and ideas, there tends to be a focus on consciousness as embodied, situated in a particular physical, social, and cultural environment, essentially related to other people, and existing in time. (This is in contrast to the disembodied, universal, and isolated notion of the subject that comes largely from the Cartesian tradition.) There is a corresponding emphasis on the world we inhabit as a distinctively human environment that depends in certain ways on us for its character and existence. Some of the central topics addressed by Phenomenology include: embodiment; ageing and death; the lived experience of oppression; human freedom; our relations with and knowledge of, other people; the experience of time; and the nature of the world. In this module, we will discuss a selection of these and related topics, examining them through the work of key figures in the Phenomenological Movement, such as Edmund Husserl, Simone de Beauvoir, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Frantz Fanon, and Edith Stein.

20 credits

Philosophical Problems 1

The detailed content of this course will vary from year to year depending upon the member of staff teaching it. For details contact the School of History, Philosophy and Digital Humanities.

20 credits

Ethics and Belief

We know things as individuals, but we also know things collectively. And what we know individually can depend on our relation to other knowers and collective knowledge. These relations are not merely epistemic, they are also practical and ethical. Knowledge can, for instance, be based on trust, while a failure to recognize someone as a knower can be a matter of injustice. Knowledge thereby has a social character and an ethical dimension. This course will introduce a broad range of topics in epistemology that explore this social and ethical turn.

20 credits

Pain, Pleasure, and Emotions

Affective states like pain, pleasure, and emotions have a profound bearing on the meaning and quality of our lives. Chronic pain can be completely disabling, while insensitivity to pain can be fatal. Analogously, a life without pleasure looks like a life of boredom, but excessive pleasure seeking can disrupt decision-making. In this module, we will explore recent advances in the study of the affective mind, by considering theoretical work in the philosophy of mind as well as empirical research in affective cognitive science. These are some of the problems that we will explore: Why does pain feel bad? What is the relation between pleasure and happiness? Are emotions cognitive states? Are moral judgments based on emotions? Can we know what other people are feeling?

20 credits

Memory and the Self

Our memories of our personal past (i.e. our episodic memories) play an important role in our lives. They help us perform mundane tasks like finding our keys, but they arguably also form the foundation of our sense of self and personal identity. They let us know who we are by recording what we've done and experienced. In this module we will try to better understand what episodic memory is and to what extent it grounds our understanding of the self. This module will introduce students to the cognitive science of memory and to core issues in the philosophical foundations of cognitive science.In the first part of the module, we will look at methodological issues that arise when we attempt to describe the mind's structure within philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience. In the second part of the module, we will look towards the cognitive sciences to better understand what sort of thing episodic memory is. In the final part of the module, we will consider the relationship between episodic memory and our sense of the self. This is an interdisciplinary module. Understanding how the mind is structured is a complex project. In order to make progress we need to appeal to both empirical and philosophical work (and work that blurs this distinction). We'll read scientific and philosophical papers; however, no prior knowledge of cognitive science (or neuroscience) will be presumed.

20 credits

Optional economics modules:

Education Economics

The amount of education possessed by individuals will influence their decisions in future. Education relates to issues such as health and labour market decisions. This module examines the demand for and provision of education, incorporating a mixture of economic theory such as human capital; rates of return to further and higher education and course type all of which directly relate to the labour market. The graduate labour market is analysed, incorporating changes in the provision of higher education and an understanding of the rationale for the introduction of top-up fees. A final section considers schools, analysing and evaluating issues such as class size reduction, competition and selection, the performance of teachers, and the importance of pupils' family backgrounds, all in terms of their effect on pupil performance.

20 credits

Health Economics

Economics is the study of how society allocates its scarce resources across competing alternatives. This notion of scarcity is as relevant in the health care sector as it is elsewhere and, thus, it is important that the resources available to health and health care are used in the best possible ways. This course will: look at how best should be defined in the context of health care; consider the roles that market forces and governments might play in achieving the sector's objectives; and discuss what information is needed so that resources can be deployed where they will do the most good. The aims of the module are: 1. To enable students to develop a critical understanding of the basis of health economics.
2. To introduce students to the health economists' toolkit, the ways in which it can be used in to inform health care resource allocation, and its limitations.

20 credits

Economic Analysis of Inequality and Poverty

This module will cover the economic theories used for the analysis of inequality and poverty.
The theories will be backed by evidence from both the developed and the developing countries. The module starts off by a discussion of issues around measurement of inequality and poverty; the different measures that are used and the inherent assumptions behind these measures. We then move on to explain the existing global trends in inequality and poverty. Different theories are used to explain these trends; for example: role of human capital, poverty traps etc. Finally we discuss the policy response of different countries to address the issues of inequality and poverty, drawing on the specific examples of welfare programmes in the developed countries and the conditional cash transfers in the developing countries.

20 credits

Economics of Race and Gender

The Economics of Race and Gender first presents an overview of differential outcomes by gender and ethnicity in the UK labour market and discusses the possible drivers of these differences.  It then presents economic theories of discrimination in labour markets before discussing the strategies that economists use to test for discrimination in the real world.  

20 credits

Political Economy

Important economic processes cannot be fully understood without taking into account political and institutional factors and governments' political motivations. This module introduces insights from politics into the study of public policy and economic performance. In particular, it aims to give students: 1. an opportunity for interdisciplinary study within the undergraduate economics degree; 2. familiarity with the modern literature in theoretical and applied political economy; 3. an opportunity to develop their research skills through research-oriented assignments.

20 credits

International Trade

The first part of the course will cover neoclassical trade theories in which countries trade following their comparative advantage. The second part of the course deals with more recent trade theories based on economies of scale and/or imperfect competition that helps us to explain some recent patterns observed in the data. The third part of the course is an introduction to trade policy and the political economy of trade policy.

20 credits

Monetary Economics

This module covers monetary theory and monetary policy. It presents several economic models and discusses what monetary policy can and cannot do, as well as an introduction to the New Keynesian model. The module aims to enable students to apply the skills of economic analysis to the conduct of central banks and to the mechanisms underlying the monetary transmission mechanism.

20 credits

Behavioural Economics

Standard economic models can successfully model human behaviour. However, the strong assumptions required of economic actors in those models will make systematic mispredictions in some contexts. Behavioural economics tries to overcome the systematic mispredictions by adopting non-standard assumptions, often inspired by insights from other disciplines. The module will discuss empirical evidence that underpins these non-standard assumptions, and will reflect on how insights from behavioural economics can be relevant in real life.

20 credits

Environmental Economics

Economic choices shape nature just as nature can shape our choices. This module provides students with the opportunity to apply economic concepts and methods to issues related to the use and management of the environment and natural resources. The module explores issues, arguments and analysis of market failure in the protection of the environment. It also offers public policy responses to issues of sustainability and climate change.

20 credits

The Economics of Innovation

The aim of this module is to provide an overview of the economics of innovation. The module will study firms' incentives to invest in innovation and the resulting policy implications. Expanding your knowledge of microeconomics this module will include the relationship between market structure and innovation, the role of firm cooperation and the effects of mergers on innovative activities. We will also look at the role of intellectual property rights / patent systems and policy interventions. As many innovations in recent years are in the areas of digitalization, artificial intelligence, and big data, the module will also cover those topics.

20 credits