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A balance between economic efficiency and maximising the well-being or happiness of a community are the nature and justification for ‘democratic’ or ‘moral’ politics. Similarly, the concept of Distributive Justice supports the balance of ownership of goods, through ‘fair’ distribution between societal members, in order to promote societal equality. Working against distributive justice principles are differing values to individuals within communities, as to what constitutes ‘fairness’. Some view ‘working harder’, as equating to being more deserving of a greater amount of goods in return, which creates imbalances in successful distributive justice. This course prepares you to be able to critically evaluate the theoretical principles of distributive justice and understand how its application may be managed, in order to promote future equality, democratic values and more harmonious environments for communities in the twenty-first century.

In this course, you will examine the implications of differing moral and political theories in relation to democratic politics and distributive justice. By exploring classic and contemporary philosophy in the context of contemporary global issues and drawing on examples from the fields of international politics, business, psychology and law, you will critically reflect on the rights, responsibilities and challenges of being a conscientious citizen in the twenty-first century.

On successful completion of this course students should be able to:

1. Analyse issues concerned with economic growth and distributive justice in the 21st century;
2. Critically analyse and evaluate strengths and weaknesses of ethical theories of equality and distributive justice;
3. Define and measure inequality between economic growth and poverty;
4. Identify issues of inequality and apply theoretical and conceptual knowledge to student assessment.