A class about normative ethics! Normative ethics is a branch of ethics that’s about establishing criteria for what’s right and wrong. The three (main) branches of normative ethics are utilitarianism (consequentialism), deontology (rights), and virtue ethics (meme). The class format is a bit weird. The lectures are mandatory and a role is taken, but the two types of tutorials (comprehension tutes and applied ethics tutes) are optional. You can go to both tutes in one week and the lecture, or you could go to just the lecture and no tutes. The lectures have a greater element of audience participation in them than usual. I think this is nice sometimes, but it tends to get bogged down in them and there isn’t that much content covered on a weekly basis. There is no metaethics/moral psychology/applied ethics covered in the lectures or read, so if you’re super interested in reading about whether abortion is justified or something similar it may not be the course for you. The lecturer is quite energetic and engaging. They offered an ‘ethics bowl’ this year where people in the applied ethics tutes could team up and compete in debates on zoom against other teams from different universities which seemed pretty cool (didn’t do this so can’t comment). The lecturer has some background in chinese studies I think, so we looked at some Chinese philosophers in utilitarianism and virtue ethics. (there was a funny moment – I thought by the way they pronounced the Chinese philosopher name all fancy that they were fluent in Chinese, but they went to write the hanzi for 人 (person) and drew some weird abstract shape. Lol). Unfortunately I just don’t think this class covered that much material to justify not covering some basic metaethics and applied ethics, which I’ve had to research myself.

Perhaps my favourite subject in my degree. Alex Cain was my tutor, and I could not sing higher praises—incredibly knowledgeable but still ran tutorials in an incredibly collaborative and comfortable way ! Gives an incredibly strong foundation for ethical theory—including parts of Aristotle, Kant and Mill. I found it to include enough pragmatic, everyday ethics for it to be highly engaging and thought-provoking. Assessments are very fair.

Interesting class! Personally would have loved if it was ever so slightly less theoretical and involved more real life ethical dilemmas. Karen is awesome though and she gives a very objective coverage of the class, which is cool. I reckon it’s not hard to do well if you keep up.

The content is interesting and they lectures are easy to follow but Karen is kind of insufferable.

This a worthwhile subject and gives a strong foundation for ethical theory. The core texts studied include Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics, Kant's Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, and Mill's Utilitarianism. These correspond to the main units of this subject: virtue ethics, deontology and contractualism, and consequentialism. Contemporary papers and articles concerning these topics follow the foundational texts as the principal reading. The subject has no live lectures, instead involving a live tutorial with online lecture material. Karen Jones is an excellent lecturer and tutor. Her selection of readings is thoughtful and gives a strong foundation for anyone interested in pursuing moral philosophy further.