Bioethics

Catalog description

This course introduces students to some of the central ethical issues in health care, biomedical research, and related areas of the life sciences. Students will explore topics in bioethics as they arise in the context of relevant professional areas-such as nursing, medicine, scientific research-as well as topics concerning the broader social implications of health care and biomedical practice and the ethical challenges they raise. A central theme running throughout this course is the relationship between ethical theory, on the one hand, and the actual practices and experiences of facing choices about health and mortality, on the other. Students will study several bioethical challenges faced by ordinary people, including those raised by commercial surrogacy, reproductive technology, confidentiality, informed consent, advance directives, euthanasia, and mental health. As students explore these issues, they will consider the more abstract philosophical questions they raise, just as they will consider how actual practical challenges serve as crucial “test cases” for ethical theories. By critically engaging with these topics and cases interactively, students will gain competence to pursue continued, independent reflection on bioethical concerns and to apply the guiding ethical principles that emerge to their own professional and personal lives.