University of Valencia

Academic, scientific or professional interest: The European Commission gives crucial importance to the ethical aspects related with research, first of all due to two reasons: that the responsible practise of the research activity makes necessary an ethical guidance of the same and to the fact that ethics must play a great unifying role in the complex process of integration of the European Union. In the 6th Programme there was already a specific thematic area devoted to ethics within the structuring programme of the European Research Area, and in the 7th the budget appropriation has been extended. In the universities, on their behalf, the existence of a commission of "ethics and codes of ethics" has been made obligatory. It is the same case for hospitals, where committees of "ethics and clinical research" are required. In the business area it exists an established and growing demand and interest in those subjects related with Corporate Social Responsability (CSR) and other subjects of ethic consultations (ethical codes and codes of ethics, codes of "good practices"). We also have to certify the work of institutions such as the Spanish Council for Ibero-American Studies (CEEIB) or the Institute of Advanced Social Studies (IESA-CSIC), Córdoba, that portray the growing concern on the study of the consolation of the democratic systems. For all these reasons the need has arisen, in different spheres of our many-sided societies, of counting with specialised expert researchers in a wide variety of ethical and central policies reflections on daily life, some already typical (education in civic values and political ethics), other are novelties (business ethics, bioethics, communication ethics and professional ethics). The Master's Degree in Ethics and Democracy expects to give an answer to this need from the point of view of the moral and political philosophy.