Free University of Berlin

Modern capitalist market economy is an extremely powerful instrument to create wealth and to satisfy human demands – and to exploit, alienate, and destroy the very societies it is supposed to serve. How can it be made moral? There are quite a number of ways: for example through deliberate lawmaking, responsible research and development (e.g. technology assessment), through enlightened consumer choices, and sustainable use of human and natural capital assets. But they often come at a high cost and involve more fundamental questions: How can politicians and lawmakers regulate the market for the common good without suffocating it? How can big corporations and tech companies continue to deliver innovative services without monopolizing the market and dominating their customers? What does a fair distribution of income look like? How do we assign value to natural and social goods (like clean air or low crime rates) and how do we measure sustainable welfare beyond traditional economic growth? How can consumers harness their own power to make informed choices and act in accordance with their values? Are digital business models based on artificial intelligence and machine learning threatening the autonomy of consumer choice? What does corporate social responsibility look like in times of crisis? These and other questions are not only of interest to economists and business people but are relevant to all economic agents (individuals, companies, state institutions, etc.). To answer these questions, the course equips participants with key ethical approaches to economic behavior (virtue ethics, religious teachings, deontology, utilitarianism, master morality, neo-liberalism), approaches which have been or still are dominating ethical discourses on economic behavior.

When thinking of US-Japanese history, the words usually coming to mind are Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, or Okinawa. But beyond their violent clash in World War II, both countries share a fascinating historical relationship dating back to the 1850s. This seminar introduces the major events, developments, and dynamics that have shaped this relationship from the mid-19th century until the Cold War. The course investigates issues of diplomacy, trade, migration, war, and cultural transmission to show how closely the histories of both countries have been intertwined and shaped by one another.

This course begins by covering the classical concept of the totalitarian state, as developed by Hannah Arendt and others, taking Hitler and Stalin as their models. Subsequent modifications and debates regarding the theory of totalitarianism, especially in the Soviet Empire, are discussed. The course questions what popular attitudes and psychological reactions exist towards totalitarian atrocities, such as the Holocaust, and under what psychological conditions are individuals capable of offering resistance. While these phenomena may now appear to be bygones of merely historical interest, the psychological aspects of “totalitarian situations” remain acutely important, even in present-day democratic societies. The massacre in My Lai, the obedience experiments carried out by Stanley Milgram, and other psychological studies provide shocking evidence of how easily average citizens are in danger of behaving inhumanely in social situations.

This course serves as an introduction to the field of environmental communication: What does it entail, what should it achieve, who are the intended recipients, and what is the intended outcome? The course studies some theoretical texts, addressing “the two cultures,” “framing,” and “technocratic discourse.” The course then analyzes political speeches about environmental policy and a manifesto. Finally, the course looks at the genesis of scientific and literary nature writing and studies extracts from classics such as Henry David Thoreau’s WALDEN or Rachel Carson’s SILENT SPRING as well as more recent texts by British and American authors. The course analyzes how these different texts operate, what they aim to accomplish and whether they succeed.

Berlin is an inspiring metropolis, a place of attraction for creative people and art and culture professionals from Germany and all over the world. Artists of all kinds, designers (including fashion), and technology experts are just as much a part of it as publishers, galleries, the music industry, or the film industry. Berlin is a focal mirror, a projection surface and a platform for a "creative class" (Richard Florida) and at the same time an urban-cultural incubator of a new lifestyle, of creative working practices of aesthetic capitalism. This seminar provides an overview of the creative industries in Berlin - their diverse fields, individual industries and players, and their self-image.

Metaphysics is one of the central areas of philosophy. Historically, it has been referred to as the study of ”being qua being” and as ”first philosophy'” but has also been rejected as mere speculation or nonsense. Today, one might say that metaphysics is the systematic reflection on certain fundamental structures of reality and our place in it. The seminar introduces students to contemporary (analytic) metaphysics, focusing on a selection of six topics: free will; possibilities and possible worlds; laws of nature; ontology or ”what there is”; properties, universals and realism; and the aims and possibility of metaphysics. The course reads and discusses classic texts from the 20th century as well as some very recent work. Each topic is addressed by two texts which take opposing stances, thus giving students an idea of the central debates. Many (but not all) texts are taken from Helen Beebee + Julian Dodd, ”READING METAPHYSICS: SELECTED TEXTS WITH INTERACTIVE COMMENTARY,” Blackwell 2007.