The Western Tradition: Moral and Political Values

The course aims at introducing the students to the moral and political values prominent in the Western tradition. A selection of values (such as liberty, autonomy, equality, fairness, fraternity, solidarity, critique, limitation of power..) and issues connected with them will be presented and analyzed in order to teach the students how to recognize when they are at stake, when they conflict with each other and how to critically assess the possible solutions and policies dealing with these values. At the end of the course, the students must be able to evaluate social and political issues in the light of the main moral and political values and to envisage the justification for the choices concerning them.

The expected learning outcomes include:
- The knowledge and understanding of the meaning and the practical implications of the main moral and political values in the Western tradition
-The ability to apply the knowledge and understanding of these values to the issues raised by the conflict among the values themselves and by typical contemporary social problems
-The ability to analyse and evaluate critically real life situations taken from the recent history of moral and political discussion
-The skill to communicate and argue in favour and against some values in specific situations, identifying themselves with one or another of the different opinions concerning the issue at stake in a discussion with the colleagues and the teacher (debate method)
-The ability to read, understand, summarize and communicate the content of chapters and articles concerning the moral and political values discussed, obtained through the reading and exposition in the classroom, guided by the teacher (flipped classroom method)