Practical Philosophy – Master's (60 credits) course.

The course spans two semesters (autumn/spring) for 60 ECTS credits.
In the first semester you will take four 7,5 credit courses. You must pass the examinations of the first semester in order to proceed into the second semester.

Modules offered fall semester 2026 (more detailed descriptions are found below) 

Current Research Area 1: Advanced Course in Epistemology: Emotions and Moral Knowledge.
Current Research Area 2: Overdetermination
Current Research Area 3: Democracy, Autocratization and Resistance
Current Research Area 4: Game- and decision theory

Apart from the courses listed, there is also a possibility to pick a 7,5 credit course offered at the undergraduate level, depending on interests and previous studies. 

The second semester consists of your thesis work. You will be allocated a supervisor with expertise in the topic of the thesis. The topic is elective but must be approved by the examiners and must fit the research profile of the members of the faculty.
After completing the course, you are eligible to apply for a PhD position. For more information about PhD admissions, please visit the website for PhD programmes.

Current Research Area 1: Advanced Course in Epistemology: Emotions and Moral Knowledge.

Teacher and examiner: Tricia Magalotti

A leading view in the epistemology of emotion is that emotions can help us to learn about the evaluative realm. Some think that emotions are necessary for acquiring evaluative concepts, others for accessing evaluative truths, and others for acquiring evaluative understanding. Still others deny that emotions are necessary for any of these aims. In this course, we will explore the question of how emotions are involved in the acquisition of specifically moral knowledge and understanding. We will also discuss whether the lessons learned regarding the moral can be generalized to other kinds of evaluative knowledge and understanding or whether there is something particular about the moral realm that makes knowledge and understanding in that domain relevantly different from other evaluative domains.

Current Research Area 2: Overdetermination

Teacher: Meradjuddin Kahn Oidermaa

Examiner: TBA

Many of the most pressing ethical challenges of our time share a common structural feature: they involve large-scale harms marked by massive overdetermination. In cases of overdetermination, the outcome occurs regardless of what any single individual does. Global climate change is paradigmatic: no one person controls whether the harms of climate change occur, yet individuals still appear to face strong considerations—reasons, in the technical sense philosophers use—in favour of reducing their flying, meat consumption, and overall carbon footprint, and can plausibly be held accountable for the harms of climate change should they fail to act accordingly. What, if anything, justifies holding an individual accountable for an outcome over which they lack control?

In this course, we will examine how philosophers have tried to tackle this question. We will explore a range of proposed solutions—from causal theories, to participatory accounts, to more novel approaches focused on authority relations and deliberative duties—as well as sceptical positions that argue the problem cannot be overcome. Crucially, we will not examine these theories and responses only in the abstract, but consider how they function when applied to some of the most pressing overdetermination problems of our time, including climate change, structural injustice, and global consumption.

The course combines interactive lectures with guided seminar-style discussions. Participants are expected to complete the required reading before each session. By the end of the course, students will have a solid understanding of what the problem of overdetermination is and why it arises, the most prominent solutions and their shortcomings, and the domains of practical life in which the problem appears.

Current Research Area 3: Democracy, Autocratization and Resistance (half speed, second part of the semester)

Teacher and examiner: Antoinette Scherz

After the hopeful waves of democratization in the 1990s and early 2000s, recent decades have witnessed a troubling trend of (re-) autocratization and democratic erosion, both in Europe and across the globe. Democracy remains the gold standard for evaluating the moral evaluation of states and political institutions in public discourse and academic debates. Yet, its current crisis demands a deeper exploration of what democracy truly entails, why it matters, and how we can respond strategically and morally to its decline.

This seminar will tackle pressing questions such as: What distinguishes a faltering democracy from an outright autocracy? When does a state cease to be democratic? What are the normative implications of this assessment for its legitimacy and authority? How should domestic and international actors resist autocratization or democratic decline? What responsibilities do citizens have toward a declining democracy or an autocratic state?

The seminar critically examines foundational debates on legitimacy, the nature and value of electoral democracy, and the ethics of resistance to injustice, including civil disobedience, in light of the contemporary crises facing democracy. Drawing on key concepts and arguments from political philosophy, while integrating insights from comparative political science, this course provides a normative perspective on de-democratization and autocratization.

Current Research Area 4: Decision and Game Theory (half speed, second part of the semester)

Teacher: Anders Schoubye

Decision theory is a formal, mathematical framework for analyzing choice, focusing on the relationships between actions, preferences, beliefs, and desires. Closely related, game theory examines strategic interactions among rational agents whose outcomes depend on one another’s choices. The first four lectures introduce the foundations of decision theory, including utility theory, the representation of preferences, expected utility maximization, and the key axioms that underpin it (such as completeness, transitivity, and independence), as well as the distinction between decision-making under risk and under uncertainty. The remaining lectures turn to game theory, beginning with a taxonomy of games—distinguishing, for example, between perfect and imperfect information, simultaneous and sequential moves, and zero-sum and non-zero-sum settings—before developing core analytical tools such as normal-form representations, payoff matrices, dominant strategies, and best responses. The course culminates in a detailed study of Nash equilibrium, in both pure and mixed strategies, and its central role in understanding strategic reasoning.

Krister Bykvist krister.bykvist@philosophy.su.se