The Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE) program at Elon offers an integrated approach to the study of wealth and power in relation to moral reflection. At the center of PPE is the examination of value and values (economic, political, and moral) and the ways that different systems of valuing are contested and enacted. As an interdisciplinary field, PPE is uniquely situated to ask normative questions in relation to political and economic practices, to consider the moral and political dimensions of economic activity, and to draw connections between issues that are of collective concern – locally, nationally, and globally.

The first program in PPE was established at Oxford University in the 1920s as a means of equipping students for leading roles in the public sector, industry, and journalism. The aim was to combine knowledge of philosophy, politics, and economics in a way that would facilitate practical as well as ethical decision-making.

PPE at Elon brings together faculty from Elon College (the College of Arts and Sciences) and the Martha & Spencer Love School of Business, encouraging breadth of learning through the integrated study of philosophy, political science, and economics. The program’s commitment to deep interdisciplinarity, conceptual and methodological pluralism, and diversity as a constitutive dimension of value and valuing seeks to illuminate the different ways that knowledge of the social world is created and used.

The PPE minor provides students with a foundation for leadership and global citizenship by fostering critical reasoning and thoughtful deliberation about complex and multi-dimensional issues of public policy that will be subject to both individual and collective decision making in the years ahead.

For more information about the PPE minor, please contact Dr. Joel Shelton, jshelton10@elon.edu.

Program Coordinator