Practical ethics handbook compiled by Kadri Simm won the best Estonian-language university textbook award 2023

On 15 March, “Praktilise eetika käsiraamat” received the best university textbook award 2023 at the Language Deed appreciation event of the Ministry of Education and Research. The compiler and one of the authors of the textbook is Kadri Simm, Associate Professor of Practical Philosophy at the University of Tartu. In total, twelve ethics experts from four higher education institutions contributed to this book.

The authors were delighted to receive this award. The compiler and co-author of the textbook, Kadri Simm, said, “We are very happy for this recognition, which crowns several years of our well-organised collective effort.”

Besides Kadri Simm, also doctoral student Meos Holger Kiik (Tallinn University); Marek Volt, Editor at the UT Chair of Practical Philosophy; Mats Volberg, Lecturer in Practical Philosophy; Francesco Orsi, Associate Professor of Theoretical Ethics; Helen Eenmaa, Associate Professor of Governance and Legal Policy; Aive Pevkur, Senior Lecturer in Organisation and Management (Tallinn University of Technology); Kristi Lõuk, Project Manager at the UT Centre for Ethics; Margit Sutrop, Professor of Practical Philosophy; Halliki Harro-Loit, Professor of Journalism; Marten Juurik, Junior Research Fellow in Ethics, and Mari Kooskora, Associate Professor in Business Ethics (EBS) were involved in creating the book.

The handbook of practical ethics is a textbook for secondary schools and universities. It aims to introduce the most important debates in the field, explain key concepts and provide selected examples of arguments. The handbook covers twelve topics that have not been previously covered in the Estonian language, in an Estonian context and with the Estonian reader in mind. The first chapter focuses on the basic concepts and issues of ethics and provides an overview of the most important theories of ethics. The following chapters cover environmental, bioethics, ethics in art, sports, professional ethics, as well as ethics in politics; ethics in family life, from the aspects of sex and power asymmetry; technology and ethics; research ethics and the ethics of a researcher; and communication, media, journalism and business ethics. Each chapter can also be read separately. In addition, there are practical exercises and discussion questions that help readers reflect on their own standpoints and provide useful arguments for ethical debates.

The authors see secondary school students and university students of introductory courses as their target group, but they hope that other readers outside the learning process will also find the material helpful.  

The textbook is currently available free of charge at eetika.ee/opik, but it will also appear in print soon. As several fascinating topics were left out, it is possible that a second volume will be published in the future.

The textbook was prepared with funding from the programme "Principles for supporting the production of Estonian-language university textbooks 2018-2027” of the Ministry of Education and Research. The research was supported by the European Union through the European Regional Development Fund (Centre of Excellence in Estonian Studies, TK145) and ETAG grant IUT20-5.  

In addition, a special award was granted to “Liivi keele õpik”, the first Estonian-language textbook of the Livonian language for universities. The authors of the textbook are Miina Norvik, Lecturer in Finnic Languages, and Tuuli Tuisk, Research Fellow in Phonetics of Finnic Languages.