Ethics
Module: Humanities
Matter: The individual and society
Main language of instruction: Catalan
Other languages of instruction: Spanish
Head instructor
Dra. Magdalena BOSCH - mbosch@uic.es
Office hours
By appointment. In order to make an appointment, please request one by mail.
The most frequent problems in our personal and professional activities are usually not really professional, in a technical sense. They are often human problems like: how to act correctly, how to maintain good relationships with other people. The subject “Ethics” is the space to study and think about this.
No pre-course requirements are needed to enrol in this subject.
The main objectives in this subject are:
1. To provide students with theoretical tools for the analysis of human behavior.
2. To introduce students into the use of the basic elements of moral thought and the main concepts in ethics.
Students who enrol in this subject will:
- Develop their capacity to identify ethical values and exercise ethical judgments.
- Learn to identify and solve practical problems and make correct decisions.
1. Introduction to the history of moral thought
2. The finality of our actions. What does it mean to be happy?
3. Virtue. Is virtue incompatible with pleasure?
4. Voluntary and involuntary actions. The risk of being free.
5. Analysis of ethical virtues. What makes a person nice and admirable? Is there a value to be nice?
6. Intellectual virtues. Are reason and feelings always contradictory? What’s moral conscience?
7. Friendship. What kind of relationship constitutes friendship? Does to need friends mean to be needy?
8. Pleasure and happiness. How can we distinguish between the two?
Three different methodological resources are used in this subject:
1. Interactive class, raising the previous knowledge of the students
2. Theoretical class, explaining the main concepts
3. Analysis of practical cases
30% of work in class or at home
30% composition of an essay
40 % Final exam
(Students must obtain a passing mark of 5, in order to pass the final exam)
ARENDT, H., La condición humana, Paidós, Barcelona, 1993.
ARISTÓTELES, Ética a Nicómaco. Ed. bilingüe, Instituto de Estudios Políticos, Madrid, 1970.
CICERÓN, De los deberes
De la amistad
De la vejez
GRISEZ, G., y SHAW, R., Ser persona. Curso de Ética, Rialp, Madrid, 1993.
LLANO, A.; La vida lograda, Ariel, Barcelona 2006
MACINTYRE, A., Tras la virtud, Crítica, Barcelona, 1987.
Tres versiones rivales de le ética, Rialp, Madrid 1992
MARÍAS, J. La felicidad humana, Alianza, Madrid, 1989.
M. MAURI, Bien humano y moralidad, PPU, Barcelona 1989
MENSCH, J., Ethics and Selfhood. Alterity and the Phenomenology of Obligation, State University of New York Press, NY, 2003.
PIEPER, J. Las virtudes fundamentales, Rialp, Madrid, 1980.
SENECA, Sobre la felicidad, Alianza, Madrid 1997
SPAEMANN, R., Ética. Cuestiones fundamentales, Eunsa, Pamplona, 1995.
TAYLOR, Ch.; La ética de la autenticidad, Paidós, Barcelona 1994