Master of Arts in Moral Sciences
Studying Ethics has two crucial cornerstones: mastering the theories on ethical behaviour and thought, and gaining insight into ethical ideas, reasoning and behaviour of individuals and groups. Ethicists always strive for specific results, either to participate in values debates or to apply to upbringing, education, training, aid and assistance, politics … Specialization is achieved by means of the Master’s dissertation and a wide range of electives.
What
The Ethics programme wants to offer insight into ethical behaviour and thought in the broadest sense possible. This insight is based on two cornerstones: first and foremost, it requires a thorough study of the most prominent philosophical and ethical approaches. Second, it requires an understanding of ethical ideas, reasoning and behaviour of individuals and groups, in the past as well as the present. We gather this knowledge from so-called auxiliary disciplines such as History, Literature, Sociology and Psychology. In addition, we focus on the acquisition of qualitative and quantitative Ethics research competencies. We build bridges between these two cornerstones throughout the programme. Ultimately this culminates in an integrated empirical and philosophical study of values, norms and ideologies. This foundation allows you to become a critical citizen capable of providing a reasoned view of the complex problems of our society. This is a critical role that Philosophy and Ethics have in common. Ethics, however, are more application-oriented. They strive for specific results either to participate in values debates, or to apply to upbringing, education, training, aid and assistance, politics ...
For whom
The admission requirements vary. Depending on your prior education, you are either able to enrol directly, or there are additional requirements.
Structure
Apart from in-depth Ethics course units, the curriculum also contains a special focus on applied ethics. In addition, you can to some extent choose a number of course units, depending on your personal interests and your choice of Master’s dissertation topic. Students without a Bachelor’s degree in Ethics will have to take the abridged Bachelor’s programme to catch up with the general philosophical, ethical and methodological course units.
In addition to the (domain) Master’s programme described above, you can also choose a Master’s Programme in Teaching (in Dutch: Educatieve Master) (120 ECTS).
Labour Market
Although the Ethics programme usually does not lead to a fixed or rigid career path, this is of little consequence on the contemporary job market and its ever-increasing demand for graduates with a polyvalent education. Today’s HR managers focus less on specific diploma requirements, and all the more on finding the perfect match between a certain profile and a candidate. Nowadays it is often the candidate’s personality that plays an important role rather than their specific diploma.
Graduates from various disciplines are eligible for these ‘all-round jobs’. Ethics graduates, however, have a favourable starting place thanks to their critical ethical reflection skills, broad background and great independence and ability to synthesize. If, moreover, you decide to combine Ethics with another field of study, you have an additional advantage over others.
Career opportunities that are directly in line with the programme are all situated in the academic research and/or education sectors. A career in education would be that of a “non-denominational ethics” teacher (in Dutch: niet-confessionele zedenleer). Other possibilities are cultural, sociocultural, ideological and other organizations, and even in less obvious sectors such as government services, journalism, librarianship or even in the business world.
Take a look at our website for a list of specific professions.
Quality Assurance
At Ghent University, we strive to educate people who dare to think about the challenges of tomorrow. For that purpose, we provide education that is embedded in six strategic objectives: Think Broadly, Keep Researching, Cultivate Talent, Contribute, Extend Horizons, Opt for Quality.
Ghent University continuously focuses on quality assurance and quality culture. The Ghent University's quality assurance system offers information on each study programme’s unique selling points, and on its strengths and weaknesses with regard to quality assurance.
More information:
Unique Selling Points
- Multiperspectivism: the Ethics programme at Ghent University is unique in Flanders and abroad. There are no comparable programmes in which students learn to study ethical and philosophical phenomena by means of such an interdisciplinary and critical approach. Our programme consists of three components: Philosophy and Ethics, branches of Humanities, and Social Sciences research methods.
- Social involvement: we train our students to think about topical social issues in a nuanced manner, and we challenge them to take up well-reasoned positions. Our students learn how to deal with a diversity of values and presuppositions. Above all, they acquire knowledge and insights that are directly relevant to the way in which today’s society deals with issues related to norms and values.
- Talent development: an important part of the Ethics toolbox consists of argumentation and communication skills. Throughout the programme we train our students in analysing and formulating arguments by means of numerous and diverse writing assignments. By writing a Bachelor’s dissertation, our students prove that they are capable of independent ethical reflection. A unique aspect of the Ethics programme at Ghent University is the fact that students acquire Social Sciences research methods (quantitative as well as qualitative research). Later on, the Master’s dissertation offers an opportunity for independent empirical research.
- Research-based: throughout the study programme, our students gain insight into important concepts and theories from various sub-domains of philosophy (with a focus on ethics), and learn to use these concepts in an adequate manner. In addition, our students gain knowledge about humankind and society by studying different branches of Humanities. This allows them to acquire thorough insight in ethical reasoning and the opinions and behaviour of individuals and groups. In addition to the broad training we offer, our students can opt for an in-depth study of a branch of Humanities in the form of a minor.
- Upon graduation: Ethics graduates have an explicitly interdisciplinary profile. They are capable of merging abstract reflection with specific academic research, they quickly see the strengths and weaknesses of proposed arguments on ethical and philosophical phenomena, and they can integrate information of different kinds in a creative manner. Our graduates readily adopt other ways of thinking, work independently on Humanities-related topics, and understand the importance of presuppositions in the confrontation between different perspectives. In short, Ethics graduates are very well-placed to participate in various social debates.
Strengths
- Dare to think differently: our programme feedback shows that students appreciate our varied offer of course units from different angels and disciplines.
- Dare to think in an original and innovative way: our lecturers’ research output is high and internationally oriented. This contributes to a teaching practice that is strongly research-based. Our students also appreciate the wide range of acquired (research) competencies. This results, among other things, in high-quality Master’s dissertations.
- Dare to think critically: our study programme feedback shows that students strongly appreciate our wayward yet critical way of thinking.
- Dare to think together: our students appreciate our lecturers’ approachability, an aspect that regularly scores highly in our programme feedback. Contact between lecturers and students is low-threshold.
- Dare to question yourself: Ghent University’s Education Quality Board (EQB) is highly appreciative of our self-critical attitude. It came to the conclusion that “the study programme is clearly able to detect weaknesses and remedy them accordingly.”
Challenges
- We are working on strengthening our alumni contacts and our contacts with the broader professional field. In so doing, we want to introduce a structural external perspective on the organisation and content of our study programme.
- We will highlight the international dimension of our study programme by investing in study abroad initiatives.
- A series of curricular revisions over the past few years has helped us to bring the uniqueness of our study programme into better focus. Together with the students, we are working to enhance our study programme’s unique selling points further.
This study programme is accredited by the Accreditation Organisation of the Netherlands and Flanders (Dutch: NVAO). Accreditation was extended following the positive outcome of the institutional review in 2022. Programme quality was validated by a quality review, i.e. a screening of the Education Monitor by the Education Quality Board. The Quality Assurance Resolution (in Dutch) can be found here.
This information was last updated on 01/02/2023.
In case of questions or suggestions with regard to the publicly available information, please contact the study programme.