Bachelor of Arts (BA)

BA Politics, Philosophy and Economics

Examine the relationship between political and economic debates in modern society.
  • Duration: 3 or 4 years
  • Year of entry: 2025
  • UCAS course code: LV25 / Institution code: M20
  • Key features:
  • Study abroad
  • Industrial experience
  • Scholarships available

Full entry requirementsHow to apply

Fees and funding

Fees

Tuition fees for home students commencing their studies in September 2025 will be £9,535 per annum (subject to Parliamentary approval). Tuition fees for international students will be £26,500 per annum. For general information please see the undergraduate finance pages.

Policy on additional costs

All students should normally be able to complete their programme of study without incurring additional study costs over and above the tuition fee for that programme. Any unavoidable additional compulsory costs totalling more than 1% of the annual home undergraduate fee per annum, regardless of whether the programme in question is undergraduate or postgraduate taught, will be made clear to you at the point of application. Further information can be found in the University's Policy on additional costs incurred by students on undergraduate and postgraduate taught programmes (PDF document, 91KB).

Scholarships/sponsorships

Scholarships and bursaries, including the Manchester Bursary , are available to eligible home/EU students.

Some undergraduate UK students will receive bursaries of up to £2,000 per year, in addition to the government package of maintenance grants.

You can get information and advice on student finance to help you manage your money.

Course unit details:
Issues in PPE

Course unit fact file
Unit code SOCS10121
Credit rating 20
Unit level Level 1
Teaching period(s) Semester 1
Available as a free choice unit? No

Overview

The course unit will be organised around a theme that is relevant to each of the three PPE disciplines. Possible themes include climate change, welfare, family, healthcare, education, justice, liberty, etc. Students will participate in lectures, tutorials, and group work to better understand and critically engage with questions of interdisciplinary interest. 

Pre/co-requisites

SOCS10121 Programme Requisites - restricted to PPE programmes ONLY

Aims

The course unit aims to… 
- … introduce students to the ways in which politics, philosophy, and economics can productively interact with particular focus on a topic* that is of 
interdisciplinary interest within politics, philosophy, and economics; 
- … develop students' 
powers of critical inquiry, analysis, and evaluation, and improve their ability to reason both independently and as part of a group; 
- … foster a community of learners, encouraging peer to peer learning and supporting and valuing students as partners and as members of our 
broader academic community. 
 

Learning outcomes

By the end of this course students will be able to… 
- … demonstrate understanding of the ways in which politics, philosophy, and economics overlap and interrelate; 
- … analyse and evaluate competing positions within a specific area of interdisciplinary debate; 
- … present and defend their opinions through reasoned argument and by appeal to relevant evidence; 
- … communicate ideas and arguments to others in a clear and convincing way, both orally and in writing. 
 

Syllabus

The course unit will be organised around a theme that is relevant to each of the three PPE disciplines. Possible themes include climate change, welfare, family, healthcare, education, justice, liberty, etc. Students will participate in lectures, tutorials, and group work to better understand and critically engage with questions of interdisciplinary interest. 

Teaching and learning methods

This unit will be taught through lectures, tutorials, and group supervision meetings. Relevant learning material will be distributed through Blackboard.

 

Lectures will have involve interactive discussion with students, and will enhance the students’ general understanding of a particular sub-topic. There will be two lectures for each discipline.

 

Tutorials will be discussion-based, and will require students to prepare by reading relevant texts and answering questions about them. The tutorial preparation and discussion will improve the students’ capacity to reason and argue. There will be one tutorial per discipline.

 

Group supervision meetings will involve the supervisor meeting groups of around six students. They will focus on the form and content of the students summative assessments. There will be four supervision meetings – two devoted to the group presentation, two devoted to the debate assessment.

Assessment methods

Group Presentation (30%)
Students will be put into groups of around six, and will be given an interdisciplinary question to research. Students must submit a 15-20 minute presentation recording in which they demonstrate interdisciplinary knowledge of the topic, and offer a reasoned argument in response to the question.

Group Debate (50%)
Continuing in the groups assigned for the presentation, students will now be paired with another group on the course. Students will have to prepare for a ‘debate’ with that other group. Each pair of groups will be told which side of a particular debate they must defend. Each group will collectively present a case for their specified position in a 10-15 minute recording. They will then have a few days to produce an 8-10 minute recorded response to the group with whom they have been paired. They will then have to produce a 3-5 minute recording in which they come to a conclusion, including what they take themselves to have learnt from the other group’s contributions.

Written Reports (2 x 10%)
Individually, students must submit 2 x 500 word written reports reflecting on your group work (one report for the presentation, one for the debate assessment).
 

Feedback methods

The group supervisor can offer feedback prior to the submission of the presentation recording and the debate recordings.

Students will be expected to give each other feedback during the process.

Written feedback (plus marks) will given by the course convener on both the presentation and the debate recordings.

Recommended reading

Particular readings will depend on the precise theme of the course, but whatever the 
theme students will benefit from reading the following general texts:
Gaus, G. and 
Thrasher, J. 2008. Politics, Philosophy, and Economics: An Introduction. Princeton, NJ: 
Princeton University Press.
Anomaly, J., Brennan, G., Munger, M.C., and Sayre-McCord, 
G. 2015. Philosophy, Politics, and Economics: An Anthology. Oxford: Oxford University 
Press.
 

Study hours

Scheduled activity hours
Lectures 12
Supervised time in studio/wksp 4
Tutorials 6
Independent study hours
Independent study 178

Teaching staff

Staff member Role
Stephen Ingram Unit coordinator

Additional notes

Only available to students on the PPE degree programme.

Return to course details