Ethics and Anthropology

The Specialized Licentiate in Ethics and Anthropology aims to prepare professors and scholars who are able to address—in their teaching and in more diverse cultural settings—the problems of: Anthropology and ethical debate; the interaction between human action and the professional world; culture and personal formation—keeping an open, all-encompassing perspective unique to philosophy.

The Ethics and Anthropology specialization is built on the philosophical reflection on the human being: what it means to live as and be a person. Studies are centered around the unity of the human person—in its biological, rational, affective, and relational dimensions—in order to address, on this basis, the dynamism of human action in the search for a full life on a personal, ethical, and social level. Understanding the dynamisms that allow for an adequate, coherent development of a person, in the search for his/her fulfilled being, requires addressing the different models of action and ethics. This allows for an assessment of how they can justify the objectivity of moral value and the openness of the free agent to the decide who he/she is as a human being. Ethical reflection pays particular attention to the tradition of ancient and medieval classical thought, especially that of Thomas Aquinas, as well as contributions from modern thought, science, and contemporary culture.

Graduate courses in Ethics and Anthropology are organized around eight basic thematic areas: 1) The nature of the human person; 2) Reason, will, and affectivity; 3) Human action; 4) Culture and relationality; 5) The successful life; 6) Virtues and education; 7) Natural law; and 8) Society and community.