Ethics, Religion and Law

Ethics, religion and law: three societal pillars on the basis of which cultures are built, wars fought and lives lived.

Why choose discovery modules from Ethics, Religion and Law?

Develop your skills and understanding of moral standards, faith and religion, politics and public policy, the law, crime and punishment, human nature and society – today and in times past.

Think about how human life is lived, and how it should be lived!

This Theme engages with the big questions in life, in death – and beyond. Explore questions of belief, prejudice, crime and punishment, equality and discrimination, diversity and inclusion. These questions resonate through history but are we any closer to ‘solving’ them; indeed – how can they be solved? Are we always destined to live in a world where difference breeds conflict, where crime and deviance are rife, and where moral, ethical and religious debates divide nations and trigger wars?

How do our societal institutions respond to these challenges? And what is the impact on individuals, families, specific genders or societal groups? How can we legislate or plan for a better, fairer world? Will we ever agree on what that world looks like or how it is run? Explore all of this and more in this diverse Theme.

For general guidance relating to discovery modules, contact your parent school. For information relating to a specific discovery module, contact the teaching school for the module concerned.

Make the most of your discovery modules

Depending on how your interests develop, you can opt to take further discovery modules within this Theme, or explore new topics in other Discovery Themes.

The Ethics, Religion and Law Discovery Theme is one of the broadest and most diverse, with over 250 modules spanning a wide range of ideas and methodologies. Sound daunting? It’s easy to make choices that will enable you to explore your interests, while building a clear pathway of knowledge and skills through your time in Leeds.

You can explore a particular theme, from one academic discipline or from a range of academic perspectives.

You can focus on an academic discipline, such as law, sociology or theology, and build your expertise in that area.

Need more help? Consider the following:

• What themes or ideas interest you? Explore the sub-themes or search for modules on topics that spark your interest.
• Once you’ve found some interesting modules, take time to look at the providing school. Understand their perspective and specialist methodologies – this will have a big impact on your learning experience.

You can then use this information to put together a good, coherent set of discovery modules. Here are two possible ways to do this:

1. Choose a range of modules that build up your knowledge around a particular theme. These might be all from one academic discipline, or they might offer different disciplinary perspectives on the same topics.
2. Choose an academic discipline (eg law, ethics, sociology, theology, history) and choose a set of modules which will enable you progressively to deepen your skills in that discipline.

You should think about what thematic areas are you most interested in. Browse the list of sub-themes and use these to bring together modules on topics that will be of interest. Or use the search facility to try to locate modules in the specific areas in which you are interested.

There is further guidance about choosing modules on each sub-theme page.

If you want to branch out into other Themes, Power and Conflict offers modules which cover complementary subjects. Alternatively, learn about the relationship between technology and ethical responsibility by taking modules from the Technology and its Impacts Theme.