Unit Public Ethics

Course
Politics, administration, territory
Study-unit Code
35321805
Curriculum
Governo della democrazia ed etica pubblica
Teacher
Vincenzo Sorrentino
Teachers
  • Vincenzo Sorrentino
Hours
  • 42 ore - Vincenzo Sorrentino
CFU
6
Course Regulation
Coorte 2023
Offered
2023/24
Learning activities
Affine/integrativa
Area
Attività formative affini o integrative
Academic discipline
SPS/01
Type of study-unit
Obbligatorio (Required)
Type of learning activities
Attività formativa monodisciplinare
Language of instruction
Italian
Contents
The course, after having defined an introductory framework to the problems connected to the notion of public ethics and to its relationship with individual ethics, will focus on the different declinations of the principle of responsibility. The questions around which the course will revolve are: what does it mean, for those who work in the public administration or for those who play a political role, to be responsible? To what extent can the context - which, for example, can be characterized by widespread corruption practices or, as is the case in authoritarian regimes, by coercive pressure to obedience - can justify the individual? Given that responsibility presupposes freedom, what does it mean to exercise one's freedom in relation to the context in which we find ourselves acting? The perspective adopted will be aimed at identifying the practical, subjective as well as political-institutional conditions for the growth of the public morality level of individuals, primarily of those belonging to administrative or political bodies. The question of the correlation between rules, customs, widespread practices and individual responsibility, will be placed at the center of the analysis, which will focus also on the relationship, often problematic and not without tensions, between legality, legitimacy and justice.
Within this problematic horizon, special attention will be paid to the idea of moral conscience. The theme of responsibility will also be declined in relation to the issues of conscientious objection, civil disobedience, responsibility towards future generations and towards the weakest people
Reference texts
F. Merloni-A. Pirni, Etica per le istituzioni. Un lessico, Donzelli, Roma 2021
Plus one text to choose from:
I. Kant, Fondazione della metafisica dei costumi, Bompiani, Milano 2017
H. Jonas, Il principio responsabilità. Un’etica per la civiltà tecnologica, Einaudi, Torino 2009
B. Mandeville, La favola delle api. Ovvero vizi privati, pubblici benefici, Laterza, Bari-Roma 2002
H. Arendt, Responsabilità e giudizio, Einaudi, Torino 2010 (pp. 233)

Non-attenders should add the following text:
M. Reichlin, La coscienza morale, Il Mulino, Bologna 2019
Educational objectives
The course aims to provide tools for analyzing the main issues related to public ethics, with particular attention to the principle of responsibility. The aim is not simply to provide a normative framework for ethical codes of conduct, but to solicit a critical reflection on the practical, subjective as well as political-institutional conditions of the growth of the public morality level of individuals. In this perspective, the course will aim to provide students with knowledge about:
- the different meanings of public ethics;
- the relationships between individual ethics and public ethics
- ethics understood not only as a doctrine, but also as a practice of formation and transformation of oneself;
- the different meanings of the principle of responsibility;
- the relationships between legality, legitimacy and justice;
- ethics as a horizon for reflection and action in view of the prevention of illicit practices.
The main skills are strictly connected to the educational objectives of the Degree Course, which aims to prepare students to interpret contemporary social and political reality, allowing them to acquire the professional skills necessary to operate effectively at managerial, public and private level, in the local, state and supranational sphere. The objective is to make students able to confront the complex reality in which public action is inserted, and the decisional strategies of the institutions are placed, assessing the implications with advanced comprehension tools of the interactions between the various factors involved. This is to evaluate ex-post the decision-making processes and the choices, public and private, which are inserted in this context, and to suggest alternative hypotheses.
Specifically, the course in Public Ethics aims to provide tools for analysis and critical reflection on the meaning and conditions of ethical action in relation to the principle of legality and, more deeply, to the principle of justice. The aim is to make students able to have a broad and autonomous view of the problems connected to the evaluation, from an ethical point of view, of the behavior of agents within the public sphere, in a realistic perspective always aimed at safeguarding coexistence, often not without tensions, between ethics of principles and ethics of responsibility.
Prerequisites
No one
Teaching methods
The course will take place through lectures. For the exposition of many of the topics addressed, I will also turn to the analysis of passages taken from the classics of political thought, and of documentation regarding current events
Other information
Attendance is not mandatory, but is recommended
Learning verification modality
The evaluation will be carried out with an oral exam, which will consist of a discussion lasting about half an hour aimed at verifying the degree of knowledge and understanding of the contents of the program. The questions will be aimed at ascertaining not only the acquisition of the aforementioned contents, but also the ability to connect the topics dealt with during the course. The degree of critical processing of the contents and the ability to link the most strictly theoretical issues to the practical-operational aspects of action within the public sphere will be considered. Students will then be given the opportunity to present short essays on one of the topics covered. For information on support services for students with disabilities and / or DSA visit the page http://www.unipg.it/disabilita-e-dsa
Extended program
In the first part of the course, we will focus on the meanings and problems connected with the notion of public ethics and its relationship with individual ethics. The underlying assumption is that collective phenomena always pass through individuals and that, far from being mere anonymous processes, they always rely on people's inner dispositions. From this the centrality of the principle of responsibility. The questions around which the course will revolve are: what does it mean, for those who work in the public administration or for those who play a political role, to be responsible? To what extent can the context - which, for example, can be characterized by widespread corruption practices or, as is the case in authoritarian regimes, by coercive pressure to obedience - can justify the individual? Given that responsibility presupposes freedom, what does it mean to exercise one's freedom in relation to the context in which we find ourselves acting?
In the course, moreover, we will not refer to a purely prescriptive ethic - which is limited to indicating how individuals and groups should behave - but to an ethic, that questions how to obtain certain dispositions, investing the field of the subjective motivations of the action. A perspective, the one assumed, aimed at identifying the practical, subjective as well as political-institutional, conditions of the growth of the public morality level of individuals, primarily of those belonging to administrative or political bodies. The question of the correlation between rules, customs, widespread practices and individual responsibility, will be placed at the center of the analysis.
Ethics will therefore be understood not as a mere doctrine, but as a practice (of formation and transformation of oneself), which also turns out to be a fundamental tool for preventing illicit behaviours. In this perspective, the classical theme of the correlation between self-government and the government of others takes on particular importance, and more generally between the relationship with oneself and the relationship with others. A theme that makes it possible not to flatten the relationship between individual ethics and public ethics on the principle of legality, but that opens up reflection on the often problematic and not without tensions relationship between legality, legitimacy and justice. Within this problematic horizon, special attention will be paid to the idea of moral conscience. The theme of responsibility will also be declined in relation to the issues of conscientious objection, civil disobedience, responsibility towards future generations and towards the weakest people.
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