Information for the student – Citizenship and Human Rights: Ethics and Politics

The general objective of this master's degree is to provide specialized training in ethics, politics and philosophy of law, giving students the skills to understand and to take decisions regarding human rights and democratic policies, problems related to coexistence in today's multicultural contexts, subjectivity and identity, and the dilemmas encountered in bioethics and biopolitics.
The programme has a dual focus: the primary and basic focus is research, while the supplementary optional focus is professional. There are three reasons for the emphasis on research: the need to gain greater insight into the major problems of coexistence and social and political organization in the contemporary world from an academic viewpoint; the applicability of this research to the life of institutions and associations active in this area in Western countries today, and the benefits to be gained from training students to enter professional practice and, particularly, to work in academia.
In addition, the master's degree recognizes the desire of most students to carry out placements or pursue training to become educators. As such, students have the opportunity to enrol in optional subjects entailing placements in institutions or specific preparation as educators.

Basic competences:
Upon completion of the master's degree, students will be able to:

• Display a capacity for original thinking in the development and/or application of ideas in a research context.
  
• Apply the knowledge acquired during the course to problem-solving in new or relatively unknown environments within broader contexts related to the specific field of study.
  
• Integrate knowledge and tackle the complexity of formulating judgements based on incomplete or limited information, giving due consideration to the social and ethical responsibilities involved in applying knowledge and making judgements.
  
• Present conclusions and the grounds on which they have been reached to specialists and non-specialists, in a clear and concise manner.
  
• Demonstrate the learning skills acquired to facilitate further learning requiring a more independent and self-directed approach.

General competences:
Successful students will be able to:

• Display critical and self-critical capabilities and the ability to work as part of a group and participate in rational discussion.
  
• Write scientific articles for specialized journals.
  
• Identity, consider critically and evaluate the viewpoints of interlocutors engaged in the debate on human rights.
  
• Display an understanding of the ontological and epistemological foundations of tolerance and pluralism, as well as the ethical and axiological grounds for their defence as values.
  
• Identify areas in which learning improvements are required.

Specific competences:
With regard to the specific applications of their knowledge, students will be able to:

• Identify and classify the fundamental concepts of ethics, philosophy of law, political science, social theory and bioethics.
  
• Devise arguments according to the concepts relating to the problems underlying practical reason.
  
• Recognize and analyse the primary political and social theories, in order to apply them optimally to practical problems in the areas of citizenship and human rights.
  
• Recognize and analyse the primary ethical and political debates on justice, freedom and equality, in order to produce well-founded research and assessments.
  
• Identify and classify the fundamental concepts of public ethics, in order to guide and to apply criteria on human rights and the central questions of bioethics.
  
• Identify and classify the theories and debates on human rights and the different generations of rights, in order to provide sound criteria for the management of conflict.
  
• Identify and classify the concepts underlying different forms of democracy, in order to conduct adequate analysis of political problems and issues of public ethics.
  
• Identify the concepts relating to different dimensions of human existence and work in its cultural relevance, in order to conduct rigorous examinations of the problems facing the individual subject in contemporary ethics and politics.
  
• Identify and analyse basic concepts of social criticism, in order to formulate reasoned judgements on problems related to citizenship and human rights.