The aim:
1. Providing basic knowledge about the specificity of ethical reflection and the main problems and disputes in ethics, as well as their relevance to criminal law, legal practice and criminal justice.
2. Developing skills to undertake and assess moral arguments in the field of criminal justice.
3. Strengthening the awareness of axiological involvement of legal practice and the criminal justice system.

Acquired knowledge:
1. Student possesses knowledge about status of moral and ethical reflection and their role in criminal justice system.
2. Student possesses knowledge about main streams of moral philosophy, their questions and methods of argumentation.

Acquired skills:
1. Student is able to solve problems regarding axiological argumentation in criminal justice.
2. Student is able to extract and analyse moral questions from complex legal, political, and/or social problems.

Acquired social skills:
1. Student is aware of ethical issues, and recognizes their multi-faceted relationships with law and criminal justice system.
2. Student thinks in a critical way, is open for a dialogue and cooperation when facing moral questions in criminal justice system.
3. Student is aware of the social roles performed within institutions of criminal justice system.

Course contents: 
1. Tasks of ethical reflection. Present philosophical, sociological and legal context of ethical reflection.
2. Main streams of moral philosophy: deontology, virtue ethics, utilitarianism, and others.
3. Basic concepts and methods of moral reasoning and argumentation in law and criminal justice system.
4. Basic moral and ethical problems of contemporary criminal justice systems.
5. Moral problems related to the treatment of an individual at all stages of the criminal process: from preparatory proceedings, through criminal court proceedings, to executive criminal law.
6. The main concepts of punishment. Detailed issues related to the philosophy of morality, the philosophy of politics and justice.

Recommended reading: 
1. Ethics and Criminal Justice. An Introduction, Kleinig, J., Cambridge University Press. Cambridge 2008.
2. Ethics for Criminal Justice Professionals, Roberson C., Mire S., CRC Press. Boca Raton 2010.
3. Ethical Dilemmas & Decisions in Criminal Justice 7th ed., Pollock, J.M., Wadsworth Cengage Learning. Belmont 2010, 2012.
4. Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do, Sandel M., Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. New York 2010.
5. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy http://plato.stanford.edu/ , many authors, Stanford. Stanford.

Additional reading: 
1. The Routledge Handbook of Criminal Justice Ethics, Jacobs, J., Jackson, J., Routledge. London and New York 2017.
2. The Routledge Companion to Ethics, Skorupski J. (ed.), Routledge. Abingdon-New York 2010.