General provisions

The Department of Philosophy is responsible for this course.

Entry requirements

Students admitted to a one or two year Master programme of the Faculty of Arts or students with a Bachelor's degree.

Learning outcomes

After completing the course the students are expected to:

• Know the names and differences between the most influential versions of egalitarianism.
• Know the influential objections, and replies to the objection, to specific egalitarian theories and egalitarianism more generally.
• Be acquainted with the basic formal differences between different families of egalitarian theories.
• Be able to discuss knowledgably the main justificatory frame works for distributive ethical theories.
• Be able to apply the knowledge gained of egalitarian ethical theories to reasoning about specific ethical cases.

Content

A central issue in ethical theorising is that of how we ought to allocate goods. Some theories about how goods ought to be allocated take no particular account of differences in how well off different potential recipients of those goods are. An important subclass of those theories that do take ethical account of the fact that some people are worse off than others are classified as forms of egalitarianism.

Despite sharing this common theme, the different forms of egalitarianism not only disagree about how to account for inequality, but also about what inequality is. This course offers a critical survey of the main current varieties of egalitarianism. The course also provides a foundation for students interested in pursuing other topics in distributive justice.

Instruction

Lectures, seminars and paper-writing.

Assessment

Examination of B students is made in the form of a scheduled final exam.

Examination of C students and Master's students is by a take home essay exam.

A student who has failed the examination has the right to a re-examination. Normally an additional opportunity is given some time after the ordinary examination.

If the examination timeframe is not kept, the examiner decides how the examination should be conducted and the appropriate time frame for it.

Other regulations

The course is given both as a first cycle or as a second cycle course.