This is a relatively new module in the Department, designed to be innovative in terms of the learning tasks and assessment. Essentially, students will be required to work in teams to produce a joint report on a pressing issue of public policy, which also has a moral/political or other philosophical dimension. In effect each group will act as a mini think-tank, and will experience the pleasures and frustrations of group work, in contrast to the normal individual work of Philosophy.

Students will collectively decide on their research topic, and will have some level of autonomy over the team in, and topic on, which they work, although it is essential that everyone is assigned to a team.

The required report will be up to 10,000 words, to be delivered at the end of term, and could be on topics such as climate change, regulation of social media, single sex marriage, regulations of drugs, funding of reproductive medicine, freedoms of the press etc looking at empirical and policy literature as well as at philosophical arguments.

In addition to the collective report, students will, individually, be asked to produce an individual discussion of one philosophical idea related to the report (1500 words) and to write a short essay reflecting on the process of producing the report and their own place in it (1500 words).

The first week or two will discuss general methodology, topics and procedure, assigning people to teams and topics. Subsequent sessions will discuss progress on the report and next steps for each group, but the precise form they take will be dependent on the level of progress achieved and what the groups would find most helpful.

Background reading:

Jonathan Wolff, Ethics and Public Policy: A Philosophical Inquiry (London: Routledge, 2011).

There are many publically available reports that students can consult including:

Nuffield Council: Ethics of Research in Developing Countries

http://nuffieldbioethics.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Ethics-of-research-related-to-healthcare-in-developing-countries-I.pdf

Royal Society of Arts: Drugs - Facing Facts

https://www.thersa.org/discover/publications-and-articles/reports/illegal-drugs-report

The Leveson Inquiry:

https://www.levesoninquiry.org.uk/

Philosophy Area B