Courses
GFVM1055 Towards a Moral Economy (3 units)
- Medium of Instruction:
- English
Some people regard self-interest as the sole key factor in facilitating economic exchange, whereas morality is not essential for the existence of economic activities. The purpose of this course is to apply knowledge from various disciplines to explore how the connection between ethics and economy, as that connection is actually experienced in everyday life, is an organic and essential component of our daily economic decision making rather than an optional element. This course integrates knowledge and research findings from several disciplines covering History, Economics, Philosophy, Psychology and Behavioral Science, as well as Politics to help students identify the role of morality under different mechanism designs in the functioning of economy, reflect the moral dilemma observed in daily economic activities, and develop their own ethical judgement and response strategy in face of controversial issues in economy.
Specifically, this course enables students to understand why market incentive cannot completely replace morality in facilitating economic exchange. With history and current issues as reflection targets, ethical theories would be applied together with economics theories, behavioural science and political science to support the development of moral judgement and solution designs towards controversial issues in economy, such as income inequality, government budget, property right arrangement, etc. Students will learn how policy analysts and voters could improve their evaluation in public policy to make the economy moral and inclusive; and how individuals could improve their daily life decision that leads to a moral, fulfilling and happy life. To facilitate students' learning, this course utilizes interactive learning tools with reflection in historical events, cultural products, online and offline social media, behaviour experiment and daily life observation, as well as active response strategy development exercises through creating derivative work for addressing moral dilemma.