Philosophy and Economics

Philosophy and economics is a rare and genuinely challenging combination, bringing together two disciplines that each command significant intellectual rigour and that share deep, historically rooted connections. Economics is a formal science of choice, incentive, and aggregate behaviour, using mathematical models and empirical data to understand how individuals, firms, and societies allocate resources. Philosophy asks the foundational questions that economics sometimes takes for granted: what constitutes wellbeing, how should we reason under uncertainty, what makes a social arrangement just, and what are the limits of rational-choice models as accounts of human behaviour?

Together, they produce a graduate capable of operating at the highest levels of both analytical and normative reasoning.

At University College London, this three-year full-time programme gives you access to all major areas of philosophy alongside a detailed education in economics, with half your modules taken in UCL's highly regarded economics department. You will engage with microeconomics and macroeconomics, quantitative methods and econometrics, alongside ethics, political philosophy, philosophy of mind, logic, and epistemology. The combination trains you to move fluently between formal argument and conceptual analysis, between empirical evidence and normative judgement.

A typical entry tariff of 184 points reflects the significant academic demand of the degree.

You will develop an unusually versatile intellectual toolkit: the mathematical and data skills of economics, the argumentative precision of philosophy, and the capacity to engage seriously with both.

Graduates from philosophy and economics programmes are exceptionally well placed for careers in economic policy, public service, finance, law, management consultancy, think tanks, international organisations, and journalism. Many pursue postgraduate study in economics, philosophy, public policy, or law, and the combination is widely recognised as excellent preparation for graduate study at the highest level.