PHILOSOPHY 3345, Bioethics
Description.
This course explores ethical
issues arising from the practice of medical therapeutics (conventional and
“alternative”), from the development of new biomedical technologies, and more
largely from reflections on life’s meaning and prospects.
The course aims at
clarifying relevant bioethical and medical issues and debates, representing various
perspectives in application to present and future human possibilities and concerns
(for example: genetic engineering and biochemical “enhancement,” longevity and life
extension, end-of-life decisions, health care access, nanotechnology, cloning,
stem cell research, mood and performance-enhancing pharmaceutical use, animal
research, and reproductive technologies).
“Bio” means simply life, but
questions about life’s goals, about appropriate means for attaining them, and
about the professions devoted to sustaining life, give rise to the most complex
and enduring ethical problems.
Objectives. The course compares many approaches to the urgent human
preoccupation with life and its many challenges (biological, environmental,
social, technological) , in order to
articulate the appropriate uses of emerging technologies, therapies,
pharmacological interventions etc., in ameliorating and possibly altering the
human condition.
Other
objectives include exploring the future of life (human, nonhuman, and possibly
post-human) and reflecting constructively on what it can mean to be human in an
age of rapidly advancing technologies and bioengineering.
The course’s ultimate objective is to provide
students with critical resources and tools they can apply in making crucial
life-choices.
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