Applied Ethics MA

Degree and/or experience:

• Normally an undergraduate degree or equivalent. Appropriate accredited modules completed as part of other masters degrees (or their recognised equivalent) are taken into consideration in judging which elements, if any, need not be completed. Prior learning will also be accredited as appropriate.

English Language Requirement:

• IELTS 7.0 overall and 6.5 in writing.

Other:

• You will normally be interviewed so that we can assess your potential to study at masters level.

There are seven distinct Applied Ethics degrees to choose from, which explore ethics in relation to art and design, education, healthcare, media, medicine or politics. No previous familiarity with philosophy is necessary.

Students take four core modules to introduce the activity of philosophical thinking and prepare for the research project. These are:

• Introduction to Philosophical Thinking
• Moral Thought and Practice
• Research Methods
• Research Ethics

You then take two subject-specific modules – depending on the named award you are seeking – which are taught by staff in the relevant area of the university.

The research project is the culmination of the MA and consolidates the experiences, practices and research skills developed on the course into an extended argument.

Individual modules can be taken as a professional development course or as a taster of what the full MA degree involves.

ART AND DESIGN

Our Art and Design Ethics MA is suitable for students with no background in philosophy. The first two core units, which students on all the degrees take together, are designed to introduce you to the activity of philosophical thinking. Two further core units, again taken by everyone, prepare you for your research project.

Modules

The Ethics of Practice

• Contemporary art practice: shock values
• Contemporary art practice: political interventions
• New media and the question of copyright
• Design ethics: sustainability and social responsibility
• Curating: issues of ownership and appropriation
• Artist/designer/curator in local/global contexts

Ethics of Research in Art and Design Practice

• Ethics of representation: practices of looking/theories of knowing
• Photography from the newspaper to the gallery
• Exhibiting artefacts and bodies
• The ‘other’: body and culture
• Issues of disability

EDUCATION

This pathway offers a practical course in the theory and application of education ethics. It is suitable for students with no prior background in philosophical study and includes specially designed module options and a dissertation project on issues of your choice.

Modules

Children and Students

• Personal relationships
• Academic values
• Confidentiality
• Teachers and students
• Assessment and competitions

Ethical Issues in Educational Research

• Information and consent
• Consent by children
• Gatekeepers in schools
• Privacy
• Confidentiality
• Participants as surrogates
• Insider research
• Costs and benefits: the justification of educational research
• Children and students as research participants
• Inspection data sponsor control and intellectual freedom
• Ownership of data
• The public right to know and the voluntariness of participation

HEALTHCARE

Modules

The Idea of Caring

• Caring
• Feminist ethics
• Advocacy and autonomy
• The client/health professional relationship
• Inter-professional and inter-disciplinary relationships
• Duties, rights and responsibilities
• Beneficence and non-malfeasance
• Truth
• Dignity and privacy
• Virtue theories

Legal Perspectives on Health

• English legal systems and methods – scope, source and types of law
• How to study law – searching and utilising legal sources: primary, secondary, European and comparative law
• The relationship of law and ethics
• Human rights and responsibilities
• Rights, equality and diversity in health service
• Accountability and professional regulation
• Malpractice litigation
• Informed consent and capacity
• Confidentiality and disclosure
• Issues of mental health, children and young people
• End of life, human tissue regulation, as relevant to learners

MEDIA

The MA in Media Ethics will introduce you to the core concerns of ethics, before exploring the ethical implications of creative and professional media practice and media research. It is designed both for professionals wishing to gain a qualification in ethical aspects of their field and for students interested in pursuing further research.

These degrees develop your critical and analytical understanding of ethical issues, drawing on sound philosophical argument, while applying these skills in the specialist field.

The first two core units, which students on all the degrees take together, are designed to introduce students to the activity of philosophical thinking. Two further core units, again taken by everyone, prepare students for their research project.

Modules

Media Ethics

• The definition of the scope of media ethics as a branch of applied ethics and social philosophy; the idea of moral obligation
• Analysis of the liberal tradition of freedom of thought and expression and the current relevance, eg the arguments of John Stuart Mill, and contemporary critique of liberalism; two concepts of liberty
• The ethics of government and the media: confidentiality and sources, ‘the right to know’, war reporting
• Censorship – taste, decency and pornography, film censorship, broadcasting and the ‘new’ media
• Privacy; defining the public and private; privacy and ‘celebrity culture’ – ‘big brother’ revisited
• Truth and truth-telling – lying and moral choice in media practice; accuracy, fairness and bias
• The ethics of globalisation and media imperialism; ownership, control and representation
• Values and professionalism – councils, codes and conduct, conflicts of interest

Practising Media Research
Research methods can appear a dry topic for discussion. However, this module demonstrates how particular methods are deployed in actual projects. Practitioners show how particular methods have been used throughout their career, modelling strategies and approaches for students to include oral interviewing, oral history and unobtrusive research methods such as working the archive.

MEDICINE

Modules

Medicine: Art or Science?

• Inductivism
• Verification and falsifiability
• Hermeneutics
• Postmodernism
• ‘The person’ as biological and normative entity
• Conceptions of ‘health and illness’

The Social Context of Medical Practice

• Contemporary liberal and socialist conceptions of social justice: Rawls, Cohen, Pogge, Farmer, O’Neill
• The foundations of the NHS in the UK: private and public medicine
• The idea of a profession: professional codes, ethics and practice
• The idea of a patient: who becomes a patient and how; patients’ responsibilities
• Global issues: resources, immigration and emigration
• Distributive justice and medicine as a social good

POLITICS

Our MA Politics and Ethics is suitable for students with no background in philosophy. The first two core units, which students on all the degrees take together, are designed to introduce students to the activity of philosophical thinking. Two further core units, again taken by everyone, prepare students for their research project.

Modules

Global Ethics

• The philosophical foundation of global human rights
• The politics of difference and multiculturalism
• Liberalism and cosmopolitanism
• Ethical and political debates about immigration
• Humanitarian intervention
• Multi-national corporations and the global division of labour
• Environmental ethics and future generations
• Capitalism, justice and poverty
• The war on terror

The Politics of Applied Ethics

• A brief contemporary history of ‘applied ethics’
• Aristotle on ethics and politics
• Marx and Engels on politics and ethics
• Moral and political justification
• Analysis of the implications of these for business ethics, funding of research, ethical foreign policy and other relevant issues