Medical Ethics

Catalog description

This course looks at competing positions and supporting arguments for these positions, on a variety of topics in medical ethics. Sample topics include general theories of moral rightness (e.g. moral relativism, utilitarianism, the golden rule); topics concerning the physician-patient relationship (e.g. physician deception and the use of pacebos), the beginning of life (e.g. abortion and human cloning), the end of life (e.g. active euthanasia and physical-assisted suicide), and the distribution of medical resources (e.g. how to ration limited medical resources and whether various kinds of health care systems are just).