About Us
Programme Mission
- To enable students to develop multiple interpretive perspectives (religious and philosophical) on perennial and contemporary issues in different contexts of public affairs.
- To help students appreciate and respect diversity within modern society in order to assess and handle conflicting values in critically informed and creative ways.
- To help students further develop and reflect on their own values, so that they will be able to justify their own decisions, judgments and convictions, and so become informed and responsible citizens in their community, nation and the world.
- To stimulate the students’ interest in, and a reflective understanding of, public affairs.
- To enhance awareness and knowledge of the value dimensions of discourses on economic, political, legal, social, cultural, and environmental affairs.
- To provide a transition to the eventual pursuit of further studies in various disciplines.
Special Features
- Issue-based and Multiple teaching methodology
To ensure students to have a good command of subject matter, multiple teaching methodology (Including lecture, guest speakers’ sharing, group discussion, case study, site-visit and movie appreciation) will be adopted.
- Flexible Teaching Schedule to Cater for Students’ Need
To meet the needs of different students, this programme provides two streams: full-time (1 year) and part-time (2 years).
Admission
Admission Requirements：
Applicants should possess a bachelor's degree from a recognized university or comparable institution. Proof of English proficiency is required for all applicants whose bachelor’s degrees were obtained from non-English medium institutions. These applicants must meet the following minimum requirements for English proficiency:
- a score of 74 (Internet-based test) in TOEFL; or
- an overall band score of 6.0 in IELTS (Academic); or
- a score of 450 in the College English Test band 6 (CET-6) of China
* The test result provided should be within two years from the date of issuance of the Admission Offer letter. TOEFL iBT Home Edition, IELTS Indicator or other English test reports are not accepted.
Programme Fee：
- The tuition fee for the entire programme is HK$ 150,000
- (Full-time in two installments; Part-time in three installments)
Application Starts：
- 6 October, 2025
Application Deadline：
- 1 February (1st batch), 4 June (2nd batch) &
- 24 July, 2026 (for local students only).
Application Procedures：
- Applications should be submitted online via the online application system.
Applicants are required to submit the following supporting documents along with their application:
Photocopies of
Essential
- HKID card (for local applicants); Passport or other identity documents of home country (for non-local applicants). Please click here for details,
- Degree certificate(s)/graduation diploma(s),
- Transcript(s) of the academic qualification(s),
- English proficiency test results (e.g. TOEFL/IELTS results).
For details of application information, please click here .
* For the Cumulative GPA and Overall GPA of the Institution/ University in the Chinese Mainland, please indicate the full marks out of 100. (e.g. Cumulative GPA: 80, Overall GPA: 100)
Contact Us：
- Tel: (852) 3411 5822 (Programme Information)/ (852) 3411 5127 (Admission)
- Fax: (852) 3411 7379
- Email: ma_epa@hkbu.edu.hk
- Address: MAEPA, Room 1001, 10/F, Christian Education Centre, Department of Religion and Philosophy, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong
Course Description
- LSE 7010 Approaches to the Study of Values
This course introduces several leading theories in normative ethics, such as virtue ethics, utilitarianism and deontology. Students learn to apply these theories to analyse important issues of public concern, such as climate change, reproductive rights, artificial intelligence, and socioeconomic inequalities. This course teaches students how to conduct individual and team-based research to produce normative analyses of these topics.
- LSE 7120 Critical Thinking for Public Affairs
Strong analytical power and good skills of critical thinking are fundamental to identifying and resolving many issues in modern societies under the digital age. They also pave the foundation for higher education, lifelong learning outcomes and academic achievement. This course introduces various conceptions of and skills in critical thinking, with the emphasis on applications to issues in ethics and public affairs. Students would learn the basic skills in logic, meaning clarification, media literacy, the detection of cognitive biases and informal fallacies, as well as inductive reasoning and scientific methods.
- LSE 7130 Social Justice
This course introduces basic concepts of social and political philosophy, including the justification of the state, the nature of social life, the relation between individuals and the collective, the ideas of liberty, right, good, etc. It focuses on major philosophical theories of distributive justice, including utilitarianism, Rawlsian liberalism, libertarianism, communitarianism and socialism. It also explores under the global and Hong Kong contexts the implications of these debates upon various concrete social issues, such as poverty, social welfare, wealth gap, political instability, discrimination, gender inequality, inclusive society, development and environmental issues, responsible consumption, good governance, etc.
- LSE 7140 Law, Liberty and Morality
The course first examines different concepts of freedom, such as negative liberty and positive liberty, and then reflects on the significance of fundamental freedom like freedom of speech. It will then address the big question, "What acts may the state rightly make criminal?" We will discuss four liberty-limiting, or coercion-legitimizing, principles in this course even though the famous 19th century philosopher John Stuart Mill argues that the harm-to-others principle is the only legitimate liberty-limiting principle. The other principles that we will discuss are: (1) the offense principle: it is necessary to prevent hurt or offence (as opposed to harm) to others; (2) legal paternalism: it is necessary to prevent harm to the actor herself; and (3) legal moralism: it is necessary to prevent immoral conduct whether or not it harms anyone. Relevant case studies will be conducted for each of these four principles.
- LSE 7070 Public Health and the Common Good
This course examines health, illness, and public health at the societal level from both scientific and ethical perspectives, with attention to local, comparative, and international contexts. It seeks to explain the spread of diseases and other public health problems across populations, including pandemics, cross-border health risks, social determinants of health, health inequalities, and issues of health care access, and raises questions about how different societies and health systems respond to these challenges. Emphasis will be placed on how scientific reasoning, epidemiology, public policy, and biotechnology are used in addressing public health problems in Hong Kong and in comparative international cases. The course also explores the roles of individuals, health care professionals, governments, and public institutions in promoting good health and well-being and in responding to public health crises. In this connection, individuals’ rights in general, patients’ rights in particular, and broader questions of social justice, human rights, and the common good will be discussed, together with moral issues concerning the allocation of public resources in public health care.
- LSE 7080 Science, Technology and Environmental Ethics
This course examines the ethical dilemmas arising from the modern application of science, technology, and technological innovation in the pursuit of a better world. It considers how advances in science and technology have enhanced the quality of human life and productivity, while also contributing to environmental degradation, unsustainable consumption, unsustainable production, climate change, biodiversity loss, and harms to ecosystems and future generations. The course critically investigates these issues from historical, ethical, religious, cultural, social, and global perspectives, with attention to the ways environmental problems and technological risks transcend national boundaries. Students will evaluate the responsibilities of individuals, societies, and institutions in responding to environmental crises and in promoting climate action, environmental sustainability, and the protection of terrestrial, aquatic, and marine ecosystems.
- LSE 7040 Values and Socio-cultural Issues in Hong Kong Today
This course prepares students to produce normative analyses of socio-cultural issues Hong Kong faces today, such as limited access to affordable housing, socioeconomic inequality, LGBT rights, and environmental degradation. These issues will be studied in their social, cultural and historical contexts by employing various interpretative perspectives.
- LSE 7050 Traditional Values and Moral Challenges in Contemporary China
This course begins with an introduction to the background of the economic reform and opening-up drive of China since the end of 1978. The impacts of this reform and opening up on the evolution of Chinese culture will be subsequently examined. It ends with a critical reflection on the modernization/globalization and future development of Chinese culture. It mainly deals with issues related to moral and ethical challenges in the contemporary public affairs, such as environmental degradation, gender equality, social cohesion, and technological innovation, in the light of the current economic and political policies and social stratifications in China.
- LSE 7060 Globalization: Cultural and Ethical Issues
This course will critically discuss the entrenched and enduring patterns of worldwide interconnectedness in our times known as globalization. Though the dynamic of globalization is basically economic, the cultural and political features of this process will be given equal attention. In the light of the multifaceted impact of globalization, this course will analyse the moral debate between its critics and defenders and will provide critical assessments from both philosophical and religious perspectives of particular ethical problems tied to globalization, including local and international poverty, economic development, protection of human rights, and just agreements between international bodies.
- LSE 7150 Human Rights in a Multicultural World
The course will help students reflect on the idea of human rights from the perspectives of major philosophical and religious traditions in the contemporary multicultural world. The contents will cover basic concepts of rights, the historical development of these ideas, the contemporary regime of international human rights law, and the perspectives of different philosophical traditions (such as liberalism, utilitarianism and communitarianism), and world religions like Confucianism, Buddhism, and Christianity. Finally, the ethical foundation of rights, the balance between individual rights and good society, and conflicts between different kinds of human rights will be discussed.
Career and Further Studies
All our students have a bachelor degree in various fields. After finishing MAEPA, they can continue to pursue their original fields but now they are better equipped. First, they get a further qualification. Second, they will have a broader and deeper knowledge about the society and many public issues. Third, they will have an enhanced capacity for critical thinking and careful analysis. These three aspects of improvement will be quite helpful for basically all professions. Moreover, if the original field is related to social policy or philosophy (e.g. social work, law), a further training in the ethics of public affairs will strengthen the student’s area of expertise and open up new directions in career like working in the government and the NGOs, teaching, further study and so on. Most students came from the Chinese Mainland.
Most of the graduates returned to the Chinese Mainland and started working in areas such as government, banking, and secretarial work. Some of them stayed behind and found employment in various fields, including education, media (such as editorial work for newspapers), marketing, accounting, administration, and secretarial work. On the other hand, the local graduates worked as teachers in secondary schools. According to the results of the Graduate Employment Survey for Taught Postgraduate Programmes which was conducted by the Career Centre of the Office of Student Affairs, four students found jobs in administration/ management and three found jobs in public relations and advertising, others in various areas, e.g., editorial/ journalism, human resources, insurance services and others. On the other hand, the local graduates worked as teachers and teaching assistants in schools, editors in mass media and officers in government.
