Criminology and Philosophy

Criminology and philosophy is an unusually rich pairing that brings together the empirical study of crime and criminal justice with the philosophical tools needed to examine its underlying concepts and assumptions. Criminology asks why crime occurs, how it is defined, how the criminal justice system responds and what alternatives might achieve in terms of justice and harm reduction. Philosophy brings the capacity to examine the concepts on which these questions depend: what is justice, what makes punishment legitimate, what grounds human rights, how should we weigh individual freedom against collective security, and what does it mean to hold someone responsible for their actions?

Together they produce a degree that is both empirically grounded and philosophically rigorous.

At the University of Stirling you will study criminology and philosophy over four years of full-time study, with a year abroad built into the programme that broadens your academic and cultural perspective on how justice, crime and ethics are understood in different societies and intellectual traditions. You will engage with criminological theory and research alongside major traditions in moral and political philosophy, developing the analytical skills to move between empirical questions about how the world is and normative questions about how it should be. The typical tariff of 184 reflects the combined intellectual demands of two disciplines that each reward careful thinking and precise argument.

Graduates pursue careers in criminal justice, social policy, public administration, legal services, the voluntary sector, philosophy teaching, human rights work, journalism, research and academia. The combination of social-scientific analysis and philosophical rigour is particularly well suited to roles in policy development, ethics and compliance, legal research and advocacy where the ability to think clearly about both evidence and principle is directly valued. Many graduates go on to postgraduate study in criminology, law, philosophy, social policy or applied ethics, using the analytical formation of this degree as a platform for specialist or academic careers.