General information

• Study points: 6.00
• Language: English
• Category: Lectures
• Duration: 52.0 hours 
• Periodicity: Taught every three years (2010-2011, 2013-2014, ...)
• POC: POC Theology and Religious Studies

Taught by

Verstraeten Johan

Aims

Content

• Introduction: Ethical questions with regards to concrete social problems such as unemployment, migration, asylum, social security etc. are situated in the context of the contemporary crisis of natural law and universal reason. Starting from the basic assumption that general social norms and criteria are necessary to avoid decisions based on the arbitrariness of power or of private interests, an attempt is made, with reference to the solutions of different liberal and communitarian traditions, to overcome the tension between the particular  Christian 'contrast society ethics' and new attempts to groud a new universal framework for social ethics. 
• The first part reviews the history human rights theories from the perspective of the implicit theological presuppositions and the development of different generations of human rights (included minority group rights as defended by Will Kymlicka). Further  a series of concrete rights is analysed: the right to property, the right to work and the right to asylum.
• The second part confronts justice theories of the Catholic tradition (particularly Thomas Aquinas and Catholis Social Teaching) with secular theories (particularly Rawls, Nozick, Sen, Walzer and communitarian thought).
• The third part reviews some important aspects of political ethics, such as: models of thought concerning the relation between faith and politics (with an in depth discussion of Max Weber's text on Politics as Vocation); subsidiarity, solidarity, the role of the civil society. 
• The forth part focuses on the history,  method and content of official Catholic social teaching  (as related to Catholic Social Thought in general) as well as on the contribution of Pope John Paul II in particular.     

Course Material

Students receive at the beginning of the course a document with the structure, the basic insights and relevant literature.  At The Course Note Service, students get a reader with articles and texts containing a detailed presentation of the theories treated n the course. 

Evaluation description

Examination type:
    oral with written preparation
Evaluation type:
    Paper

Explanation

Classic oral exam with 2 or 3 questions. The students get a list with exemplary questions before the exam period.