MORAL PHILOSOPHY
- Overview
- Assessment methods
- Learning objectives
- Contents
- Bibliography
- Delivery method
- Teaching methods
- Contacts/Info
A good general knowledge, culture and education acquired by critically reflecting upon media, essays/studies and literary texts.
To act consistently with the above-mentioned aims and methodology, a written multiple choice test (ten questions about the whole course-contents) is eventually submitted for Moral Philosophy. The test shows the reached level of 1. theoretical knowledge 2. ethics-applying skills 3. abilities of communicating and commenting different moral points of view and 4. other competences in medical humanities. The students have two minutes to give the right answer to each single question (2/30 are subtracted if a single answer is wrong or missing; at least 6 right answers must be given to pass the quiz).
For History of Religions an oral examination will evaluate understanding capacities, applied knowledge skills, communication abilities, judgment autonomy.
For what concerns the other hoped educational results, the teachers will take in account the performances shown by the students in the classroom-debates, and they will express and comment together a specific evaluation credit, in order to confirm or correct the multiple choice tests marks .
The Commission will eventually propose (after discussing and evaluating both the results) the average marks. Both the examinations (written in ethics and oral in history of religions) have to be passed to get a successful result. Otherwise, the student must repeat again the whole exam.
Educational aims and hoped-for results in ethics, history of religions and humanities are the coherent, necessary introduction and completion of an University degree in Professional Education. The main goal is training the students for a sound and coherent ethical and historical reasoning in educational contexts of research, practice and work. Moreover, the course aims to offer students religious-historical information useful to interpret the educational relationship in a pluralistic society.
Skills to be pursued and implemented are the following ones: perceiving a moral dilemma; justifying personal evaluations in the light of rules, principles and theories; composing a quarrel and disagreement inside the staff and into our social pluralistic arena; recognizing the historical and cultural dimensions of social, scientific and technological institutions and practices; learning a language suitable for understanding, interpreting and commenting (in dialogue) upon the narrative events of an individual biography and of the institutional working life. At the end of the course, the student is expected to manage ethical, humanistic and religious-historical cognitive skills, to express and defend an autonomous moral judgment, to apply the theoretical understanding to specific, concrete dilemmas, to communicate, dialogue and debate value-laded issues in an interdisciplinary and pluralistic setting, to learn an attitude of ethical problem-solving, to respect the human rights of sick or suffering or socially weak persons, to perceive religious-historical dimensions of the professional education.
Moral Philosophy contents: Educational virtues and skills. Definition of moral philosophy and applied ethics (educational ethics, biomedical ethics); bioethics at the beginning and end of life; counselling, education, psychotherapy and ethics; ethical issues in the research, in the educational/clinical practice (truth telling, confidentiality, consent and so on), in the public health care and in educational policies (justice, vaccination, organ transplantation, animal rights, and so on) [for details, see the index of the suggested handbooks]. Cases of conflict between moral principles and new Italian and European laws about the aims, role and limits of the professionals involved in the educational setting field. A special regard is offered to palliative care, in a bio-psycho-social and person-centered perspective, in order to protect human rights, to defend an independent scientific information, to avoid conflicts of interest and to respect gender-identities, conditions of poverty, ethnic origins. About 20 hours of direct interpersonal teaching are required as a general basic introduction.
Vis a vis lessons/lectures are going to deal with some of these topics and to show the proper learning methodology to widen the issues. Individual ways of further studying and investigating in ethics and history of religions are to be taught and tested in the classroom.
For History of Religions: Religious traditions and educational relationship. 1) Studying religions: question and method. 2) Globalization and multi-religious societies. 3) Differences and inter-culturalism. 4) Can we define religion? 5) Religious pluralism. 6) Anthropological enigma and search for meaning/sense. About 10 hours of direct interpersonal teaching can offer a general basic introduction.
Texts
Moral Philosophy:
Cattorini, Bioetica. Metodo ed elementi di base per affrontare problemi clinici, Elsevier, Milano, 4 ed. , 2011; P.M. Cattorini, Bioetica e cinema, FrancoAngeli, Milano, 2° ed. 2006;; T.L. Beauchamp – J.F. Childress, Princìpi di etica biomedica, Firenze, Le Lettere, 1999 (Principles of Biomedical Ethics, Oxford Univ. Press); L. Mortari, La pratica dell’aver cura, Milano, Bruno Mondadori, 2006; S. Vegetti Finzi, Il romanzo della famiglia, Milano, Mondadori, 1992; S. Shapshay, Ed., Bioethics at the Movies, Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 2009.
for History of Religions:
B. Salvarani, Il fattore R. Le religioni alla prova della globalizzazione, Bologna, Emi, 2012.
By following the introductory exposition by the professor (in order to achieve the above-mentioned educational aims), and by dealing with concrete situational/educational problems, cognitive knowledge, emotional discernment, communicating competence and history/ethics-applying skills are fostered and trained. Theories, principles, ways of reasoning, logical rules, linguistic ambiguities, styles of behavior, historical events and moral questions are presented, commented and analyzed in a pluralistic manner. Relevant key words and issues will be debated and interdisciplinary professional-educational dilemmas will be criticized and evaluated. Narrative texts, especially motion pictures, will involve the group in the emotional heart of complex cases, in order to outline the social and historical imaginary, to help the expression of individual/class insights and feelings, to prepare a mature staff decision.
Moreover, texts, movies and music will be useful for deepening further studying in History of Religion.
Reception Hours: for more information and individual consultation or after class meeting in “Padiglione Antonini”, via Rossi 9, Varese, the student is invited to preliminarily contact the teachers at their email address (paolo.cattorini@uninsubria.it ;
fabriziolonghi@gmail.com ).