Master 2025/2026

Political Ethics

Type: Compulsory course (Politics. Economics. Philosophy)

Delivered by: School of Politics and Governance

When: 2 year, 1, 2 module

Open to: students of one campus

Instructors: Boris Kapustin

Language: English

Course Syllabus

Abstract

This course introduces students to political philosophy with a special focus on issues of morality inasmuch as they arise in the realm of politics. Topics will include discussions of the difference between "moralism" and "realism", of the role of violence in politics and its moral assessment, of the morally motivated resistance to oppression, with an eye on nonviolent politics, of the function(s) of the morally driven utopias in politics, of the moral underpinnings of power, and etc. The course aspires to demonstrate the impossibility of "value-free" politics and at the same time the specificity of "political morality" and its distinction from the "morality of private life".