Course Title：Introduction to Ethics

The topics of the course are the nature and definiton of morality as a specific evaluational criterion and as a social fact, and ethics as a philosophical theory of morality; basic distinctions between acts and events, reasons and causes, values and facts. Ethical theories, brief preliminary examination of five ethical theories (direct intuition and „golden rule“, virtue ethics, theory of double effect, utilitarianism, and deontology). Metaethics (theory of meaning and theory of justification, „is/ought“ gap, institutional facts, constitutive rules). The origin of ethics as philosophical endevour (phisis/nomos, Socrates), a brief outline of the history of ethics. Cultural and ethical relativism. Religion and morality (Divine Command Theory). Justice and Social Contract Theory. Psychological and ethical egoism. Utilitarianism in more details: instrumental rationality, the strucure and scope of consequentialism. Kantian deontological ethics in more details, categorical imperative, compatibilism. Applied ethics (short outline: bioethics, environmental ethics, computer ethics).