Course description
November 10-13 and November 17, 2025. The course is a 7.5-ECTS course, equivalent to five weeks of full-time study, or 200 hours, but the teaching is condensed to five days.
The course is campus based, but the November 17 session can be given in hybrid format upon request.
The concept of exploitation plays an important role in our moral thought and discourse. It looms large in public and policy debates about practices such as “sweatshop” employment, gig work, commercial surrogacy, and organ markets. It is also central to social criticism, for instance in the socialist and feminist traditions. However, while charges of exploitation are common, their nature and normative significance remain unclear. This has inspired extensive recent debates in moral and political philosophy about the ethics of exploitation.
This course provides an in-depth overview of these debates. Questions to be addressed may include: What is exploitation? What distinguishes it from similar phenomena, such as coercion and domination? What, if anything, is morally wrong with exploiting people when they benefit from and consent to being exploited? Who, if anyone, is responsible for preventing or mitigating exploitative arrangements? How is exploitation related to structural injustice? These questions will be explored through careful of analysis of key contributions to exploitation theory together with discussions of putatively exploitative real-world practices.
Requirements and Selection
Entry requirements
General and specific entry requirements for third-cycle education according to Admissions Regulations and the general syllabus [allmän studieplan] for Practical Philosophy.
Selection
The course is open to students on PhD level in philosophy (or the equivalent) at all Swedish universities.
Course syllabus
FP30110
Department
Department of Philosophy, Linguistics and Theory of Science
Subject
Humanities
Type of course
Subject area course
Keywords
filosofi, etik