Moral Values and Social Issues

Objectives

The main objectives are:
- to convey knowledge on the contemporary western ethical thought, at the crossroads between destitution of
ethics universals and the need for moral criteria;
- to identify the fundamental contemporary moral values;
- to stimulate analytical and critical reflection on the issues in question;
- to promote ethical debate, developing argumentative skills about the successive ethical issues presented
- and to awake the imagination and creativity of the students through the exercise of the ethical reflection.

Program

1. The demoralization of the present societies and the emergence of a “post-moralist ethics”
1.1. The ingredients of moral life
1.2. The moral values
1.3. A post-moralist ethics

2. The emergence of new values and the institutionalization of rights
2.1. Human rights
2.2. Tolerance
2.3. Freedom
2.4. Responsibility
2.5. Justice
3. Common moral and applied ethics
3.1. The emergence of applied ethics: sense of concrete and demand for efficacy
3.2. Some applied ethics

Teaching Methodologies

Methodology:
Each Seminar session is devoted to a specific theme, with a previously assigned base text from which appreciation we proceed to the explanation of the knowledge related to the selected issue and we structure the ethical debate thus arisen.

The evaluation anticipates:

The preparation of a critical review, from a selected scientific paper, on a issue on the scope of the Seminar (of the MEFIC), leading to:

• the synthesis of the paper, through the enunciation of the thesis of the author, as well as the identification and explanation of the main (axial) and secondary ideas, and a rigorous presentation of the argumentation developed by the author;
• the critical appreciation of the text at work, through the consideration of the presumptions from which the author starts, of the lines of thought he develops and the validity of the arguments used;
• a personal comment evaluating the merit of the analyzed text;
• in a total of 7.000 to 9.000 characters.

Bibliography

Avroux, S.; Jacob, A; Mattei, J.F. (dirs.), Encyclopédie Philosophique Universelle. Paris, P.U.F., 1-5 vol., 1990-1992.
Canto-Sperber, Monique, Dictionnaire d’éthique et de philosophie morale, Paris, P.U.F., 1996.
Etchegoyan, A., La valse des éthiques, Paris, Édition François Bourin, 1991: “Démoralisations” (13-61); “Espoirs”
(223-242).
Ferry, L., O Homem-Deus ou O sentido da vida, Lisboa, ASA, 1997 (90-100).
Hesse, J., Filosofia dos Valores, Coimbra, Almedina, 2001, 253 pp.
Lipovetsky, G., A era do vazio, Lisboa, Relógio d’Água, 1983: “Narciso ou a estratégia do vazio” (47-74).
Lipovetsky, G., O crepúsculo do dever, Lisboa, D. Quixote, 1994: “As metamorfoses da virtude” (147-178); “Uma
ética renovada” (235-276).
Renaud, Michel, “Os valores num mundo em mutação”, Brotéria, 139, 1994: 299-322.
Scheler, M., Le formalisme en éthique et l’éthique matérielle des valeurs, Paris, Éditions Gallimard, 1965.
UNESCO, Où vont les valeurs?, Paris, Éditions UNESCO/Albin Michel, 2004