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Course, academic year 2017/2018   
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Ethics and Economics - JEM020
Title: Ethics and Economics
Czech title: Ethics and Economics
Guaranteed by: Institute of Economic Studies (23-IES)
Faculty: Faculty of Social Sciences
Actual: from 2016 to 2018
Semester: winter
E-Credits: 6
Examination process: winter s.:
Hours per week, examination: winter s.:2/2, Ex [HT]
Capacity: 97 / 97 (97)
Min. number of students: unlimited
4EU+: no
Virtual mobility / capacity: no
State of the course: taught
Language: English
Teaching methods: full-time
Additional information: http://dl1.cuni.cz/course/view.php?id=3695
Note: course can be enrolled in outside the study plan
enabled for web enrollment
priority enrollment if the course is part of the study plan
Guarantor: doc. Ing. Tomáš Cahlík, CSc.
Teacher(s): doc. Ing. Tomáš Cahlík, CSc.
Class: Courses for incoming students
Schedule   Noticeboard   
Annotation -
Lecture notes for this course are on:

https://ssrn.com/abstract=6201978

This course is interdisciplinary: different concepts from moral and political philosophy, methodology, social sciences, economics and finance are used for discussing many relevant topics. Used approaches are explained in lectures, topics are discussed in seminars.

There are no required prerequisites for this course.
Last update: Cahlík Tomáš, doc. Ing., CSc. (19.03.2026)
Literature - Czech

Lecture notes for this course are on:

https://ssrn.com/abstract=6201978

Recommended readings for each week are specified in the syllabus.

Recommended videos:

Harvard Justice course:   justiceharvard.org

Yale open course "The Moral Foundations of Politics":   https://oyc.yale.edu/political-science/plsc-118/lecture-1

 

Last update: Cahlík Tomáš, doc. Ing., CSc. (19.03.2026)
Syllabus -
      • Week 1
        • Introduction to the course (Linking Ethics and Economics.  Institutions, Organizations and Ethics)
        • Consequentialist x Categorical Reasoning
        • Ethical Pre-Understanding of Real Situations
        • Empiricist Ethics (Empiricism. Hedonism. David Hume. Utilitarianism)
        • Moral reasoning: sound and valid arguments
        • Utility in Economic Models
        • What is Ethics? (Ethics as Practical Philosophy. Forms of Ethics)

        Required Reading:

        Max Weber: Politics as Vocation (Can be found on web) e.g. http://anthropos-lab.net/wp/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Weber-Politics-as-a-Vocation.pdf

      • Week 2

        • Philosophy - Selected Topics
        • Philosophy of Science
        • Philosophy of Social Science
        • Exercising of moral reasoning on Legality of Drugs

        Required Reading:

        John Stuart Mill - Utilitarianism (e.g. https://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/mill1863.pdf )

        Optional Readings:

        http://web.uncg.edu/dcl/courses/viceCrime/m6/nadelmann%20-%20the%20case%20for%20legalization.htm

        https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/against-the-legalization-of-drugs/

         

      • Week 3

        • Philosophy of Social Science - Continued
               Macrosocial Science and Functionalism
               Moral Questions and Social Science
        • Philosophy of Economics
        • Exercising of moral reasoning on abortion

        Required Reading:

        Milton Friedman - The Methodology of Positive Economics (e.g. https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnx0c3puZ2F3b25nfGd4OjE3MDM2MDQ3OWRmZWE1NTY )

        Optional Readings:

        http://spot.colorado.edu/~heathwoo/Phil160,Fall02/thomson.htm

        http://faculty.polytechnic.org/gfeldmeth/45.marquis.pdf

         

      • Week 4

        • From Personal to Social and Economic Ethics
                       Human Person in Human Relations
                       Human Relations in Institutional Intermediation
                       Social and Economic ethics
        • Comparison of methodological and theoretical bases of Neoclasical Synthesis and Postkeynesian Economics
        • Exercising of moral reasoning on migration

        Required Reading:

        Ludwig von Mises: Human Action - Introduction (Economics and Praxeology, The Epistemological Problem of a General Theory of Human Action, Economic Theory and the Practice of Human Action, Résumé) (e.g. https://cdn.mises.org/Human%20Action_3.pdf )

        Optional Readings:

        http://www.garretthardinsociety.org/articles_pdf/living_on_a_lifeboat.pdf

        http://www.nytimes.com/1999/09/05/magazine/the-singer-solution-to-world-poverty.html

         

      • Week 5

        • Theory of Choice
        • Immanuel Kant and Categorical Reasoning
        • Thomas Aquinas and Conscience
        • Exercising of moral reasoning on "helping to the poor"
        • Comparison of different approaches: Ethical Egoism, Social Contract approach, Utilitarianism and Christian approach

        Required Reading:

        Friedrich August von Hayek: Law, legislation and Liberty - Chapter 7 (General Welfare and Particular Purposes) (e.g. https://libsa.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/hayek-law-legislation-and-liberty.pdf )

        Optional Readings:

        https://www.jefftk.com/rachels-2013-immorality-having-children.pdf

        http://users.manchester.edu/Facstaff/SSNaragon/Online/texts/425/Sen,%20PropertyHunger.pdf

         

      • Week 6

        • Four Levels for Judgement of Rules
        • Iterative Relation between Individual Rules and Social Norms
        • Psyche – Psychological and Philosophical Insight
        • Social Stability - Giving Reasons to Ethical Norms
        • Are there some universal human rights?
        • Exercising of moral reasoning on the ethics of war and peace

        Required Reading:

        CFA Institute Code of Ethics and Standards of Professional Conducts (just 2 pages) (please find on https://www.cfainstitute.org/pages/index.aspx  under EthicsAndStandards)

        Optional Readings:

        http://www2.hawaii.edu/~freeman/courses/phil100/14.%20The%20Ethics%20of%20War%20and%20Peace.pdf

        https://www.dissentmagazine.org/wp-content/files_mf/1428085978JohnRawls.pdf

         

      • Week 7

        • Constitutional Economics I
          • Origin
          • Constitutional Contract
          • The Contractarian Birth of State
          • Postconstitutional Contract
          • Public Goods and Common Resources
        • Selfrealization and Freedom I
        • Exercising of financial analysts ethics: Ethics Codes, CFA Ethics Code, CFA Standards of Professional Conduct
           

        Required Reading:

        Immanuel Kant, Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals (1785) (e.g. https://cpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/blog.nus.edu.sg/dist/c/1868/files/2012/12/Kant-Groundwork-ng0pby.pdf )

      • Week 8

        • Constitutional Economics II
          • Status Quo
          • Contractual Changes in the Status Quo
          • Dual Capacity of State
          • Order as Public Goods
          • Order as Public Capital Goods
          • Are we not governed too much?
          • What can we do with that?
        • Redistributive Role of the State
        • Selfrealization and Freedom II
          • Guilt and Shame
        • Exercising of moral reasoning on terrorism and torture

        Required Reading:

        Karl Raimund Popper: The Open Society and Its Enemies Vol. 1 - Chapter 1 (Historicism and the Myth of Destiny) and Chapter 9 (Estheticism, Radicalism and Utopianism) (e.g. on https://epdf.pub/the-open-society-and-its-enemies-the-spell-of-platoa93dec0c92690f48572982c5940e421739524.html (download as Full Text)

        Optional Readings:

        http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2002/11/27/0000184966

        http://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1163&context=facpub

         

      • Week 9:

        • Virtue
        • Fairness, Labour Market and Inflation
          • Mainstream Approach
          • Postkeynesian Approach
            • Labour Demand
            • Labour Supply
            • Competing Claims Model of Inflation
        • Exercising of moral reasoning on animals and environmentalist ethics

        Required Reading:

        Aristotle: The Politics - Book 1 (e.g. http://files.libertyfund.org/files/819/0033-02_Bk_SM.pdf )

      • Week 10

        • Justice
        • Happiness
        • Sense
        • Selected Economic Topics  with Stressed Ethical Dimension" (System of Natioonal Accounts and Distribution of GDP,Measuring Income, Job and Wealth Distribution, Economics of Happiness, New Institutional Economics and Trust, Economics and Family, Economics and Gender)
        • Exercising of moral reasoning on family, marriage and household

        Required Reading:

        • Alisdair MacIntyre: After Virtue (e.g. https://epistemh.pbworks.com/f/4.+Macintyre.pdf ), Chapter 14: "The Nature of the Virtues"

          Optional Readings:

          https://digitalcommons.law.lsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5933&context=lalrev

          https://newrepublic.com/article/103297/for-better-or-worse-gay-straight-marriage

           

        • Week 11

          • Democracy

          Required Reading:

          Hannah Arendt: Philosophy and Politics (https://zetesisproject.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/arendt-phi-and-politics.pdf)

        • Week 12

          • Miscellaneous
            • Marxist Ethics
            • Psyche once more
              • Psychoanalysis
              • Etology and Konrad Lorenz
            • Nietsche and his hammer
            • Material value ethics
            • Existentionalist Ethics
            • Ethics of discours
          • Exercising of moral reasoning on ICT development

          Required Reading:

          Bertrand Russel: The Elements of Ethics (1910) (http://fair-use.org/bertrand-russell/the-elements-of-ethics)

Last update: Cahlík Tomáš, doc. Ing., CSc. (14.11.2020)
 
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