Course Description
When is a person dead? Should we let people sell their organs for transplant? Is it ever okay for doctors to withhold information from patients? What kind of healthcare system should we have? Are clinical trials exploitative? Should we genetically enhance human beings? In this class, we’ll discuss these and other pressing ethical issues that arise as science and technology advance the frontiers of medicine.
Course Text: Contemporary Debates in Bioethics, Caplan and Arp (Eds.)
Schedule of Readings
(full syllabus here)Ethics in Theory and Practice
6/12: Introduction and overview (no reading assignment)
6/13: There Are Universal Ethical Principles That Should Govern the Conduct of Medicine and Research Worldwide (17) Daryl Pullman
6/14: There Are No Universal Ethical Principles That Should Govern the Conduct of Medicine and Research Worldwide (27) Kevin S. Decker
Life and Death
6/15: There Can Be Agreement as to What Constitutes Human Death (377) James L. Bernat
6/16: There Cannot Be Agreement as to What Constitutes Human Death (388) Winston Chiong
6/19: ASSIGNMENT 1: Is the Sanctity of Life Ethic Terminally Ill? Peter Singer
6/20: Physician-Assisted Suicide Is Ethical (203) John Lachs
6/21: Physician-Assisted Suicide Is Not Ethical (213) Patrick Lee
Transplant and Body Autonomy
6/22: It Is Morally Acceptable to Buy and Sell Organs for Human Transplantation (47) Mark J. Cherry
6/23: It Is Not Morally Acceptable to Buy and Sell Organs for Human Transplantation (59) Arthur L. Caplan
6/26: ASSIGNMENT 2: Why Not Confiscate? Christoph Schmidt-Petri
6/27: Designated Organ Donation Eike-Henner W. Kluge; The Tyranny of the Gift Nancy Scheper-Hughes
Healthcare
6/28: Why We Must Ration Health Care Peter Singer: Please also watch short videos on Health Insurance, Obamacare, and Repeal & Replace
6/29: QALYfying the Value of Life John Harris
6/30: Justice, Health, and Healthcare Norman Daniels
7/3: ASSIGNMENT 3: The United States of America Should Not Adopt Universal Healthcare (314) Glen Whitman
7/4: NO CLASS – Independence Day
Doctors and Patients
7/5: There Are Circumstances in Which a Doctor May Withhold Information (409) Tom L. Beauchamp
7/6: There Are No Circumstances in Which a Doctor May Withhold Information (418) Jason T. Eberl
7/7: The Child Should Have the Right to Refuse Medical Treatment to Which the Child’s Parents or Guardians Have Consented (173) William J. Winslade
7/10: The Child Should Not Have the Right to Refuse Medical Treatment to Which the Child’s Parents or Guardians Have Consented (181) Catherine M. Brooks
Research and Frontiers
7/11: Clinical Trials Are Inherently Exploitative (473) Jamie Carlin Watson
7/12: International Clinical Trials Are Not Inherently Exploitative (485) Richard J. Arneson
7/13: There Is a Legitimate Place for Human Genetic Enhancement (343) Nicholas Agar
7/14: The Case Against Perfection Michael J. Sandel
7/17: ASSIGNMENT 4 DUE BY END OF DAY