Beyond Bioethics Foreword, Introduction, 1; Premonition 7
1. Concern for individual autonomy and personal sovereignty can obscure what other issue?
2. Why should we expand our notion of bioethics to biopolitics?
3. What popular sentiment on human reproductive cloning did Planned Parenthood not adopt, "fortunately"?
4. As the field of Bioethics evolved, to what approach did it stake a claim?
5. Name two of the distinctive concerns of the "new biopolitics" marking its difference from mainstream bioethics.
6. What "strand in the identification of the undeserving poor" is enjoying a revival?
7. Who was the Social Darwinists' leading spokesperson, and what did conservatives oppose in his name?
8. To whom did German eugenicists say they owed a debt?
9. Who said "low intelligence is a stronger precursor of poverty than low socioeconomic background"?
10. What assumption, according to a cited philosopher, encourages people to treat differences as pathologies?
Premonition
1. What's CEPI, who ran it, and who funded it?
2. What tacit rule did the Trump White House inherit from the Reagan administration?
3. What large gathering did the Chinese government allow in January 2020, after what WHO announcement?
4. Redneck epidemiology is academically ____.
5. What was shocking about the rate of viral reproduction of the novel coronavirus, compared to 1918?
6. What was Carter's favorite metaphor to convey people's inability to conceive exponential growth?
7. What could James Lawler not quite believe about the repatriation of Americans from Wuhan?
8. What was Carter's idea for a fishing expedition?
9. Who did Duane Caneva tell the Wolverines about on Feb 6, 2020?
Discussion Questions:
Why is disproportionately white and middle-class patronage of 23andMe a problem?
Is it inherently and unexceptionally wrong to prescribe dosages based on the patient's race and ethnicity?
- Should the role of medical professionals in the Nuremberg (etc.) atrocities have surprised us?
- Can any form of public/government-sponsored eugenic screening or counseling ever be seriously and cautiously entertained in a free society? Can "university presidents, MDs, judges, scholars" et al ever again advocate respectably for any form of eugenics? (xxi)
- What do you imagine would be the negative consequences, should human reproductive cloning ever be left to "individual choice"?
- How would you respond to any of the "thorny ethical questions" arising from germline engineering, CRISPR, etc.? (3)
- Is our social obligation to ameliorate poverty altered in any way by considerations of poverty's source, particularly in the case of the children of poverty?
- Is the promise of epigenetics to account for the so-called achievement gap, and in support of various interventions in the lives of poor children, scientifically sound? Is there a danger that its misuse will actually set back the cause of effective social reform?
9. Who said "low intelligence is a stronger precursor of poverty than low socioeconomic background"?
ReplyDeleteRichard Herrnstein and Charles Murray
5. Name two of the distinctive concerns of the "new biopolitics" marking its difference from mainstream bioethics.
ReplyDelete1. Reckoning with the role of commerce/markets in biomed and biotech
2. Steering clear of a new market-driven eugenics
In this section of the text, that last concern reminded me of a discussion we were having in class about eugenics. I think someone is presenting about eugenics in some capacity for midterm reports, I'm excited to have a discussion about this issue.
DQ 3: I actual don't think it should surprise us. Evil can come from any individual from any nation or creed, we should not hold a certain group as being pure. The human experiments that were done were horrific and evil. What I think is even more pressing to our current day is what the governments of the world were willing to do and cut deals with those who committed the atrocities. If you look into the Japanese research, specifically unit 731. The government directly covered up any involvement they had with evil research, so as to gain a supposed edge against the soviets. This is a direct quote on the matter "the American government and military would overlook violations of international law, human rights abuse, or outright evil if it were advantageous to do so.". What is the government willing to do next to gain the upper hand over enemies, or evenher own populace?
ReplyDelete4. Redneck epidemiology is academically laughable.
ReplyDelete1. CEPI had been funded by European governments, the Gates foundation, and others with deep pockets. Richard Hatchett ran the organization.
ReplyDelete3. What popular sentiment on human reproductive cloning did Planned Parenthood not adopt, "fortunately"?
ReplyDeletePlanned Parenthood did not adopt the sentiment that "the decision [to prohibit human reproductive cloning] should be a matter of individual choice."
4. As the field of Bioethics evolved, to what approach did it stake a claim?
ReplyDeleteIt staked a claim to providing a secular, detached approach to the profound questions of life and death, one that could be endorsed by governments, private organizations, and practitioners regardless of religious affiliation or philosophical belief.
6. What was Carter's favorite metaphor to convey people's inability to conceive exponential growth?
ReplyDeleteFire. The Mann Gulch Fire was particularly interesting to him. I think it definitely is a good metaphor for pandemics in general too. One second it's just a spark, the next second a whole building or forest could be in flames. Fires are also probably not well understood to the general public and may seem unpredictable. I thought the concept of an escape fire was interesting. It seems bizarre that a way to survive a fire could be to make another one!
3. What large gathering did the Chinese government allow in January 2020, after what WHO announcement?
ReplyDeleteThe large gathering was for an annual celebration and included forty thousand Wuhan families (it's hard to even imagine that many people!). It included a buffet too. I was kind of surprised to hear this. I had originally thought that China had kind strict restrictions even from the beginning.
10. What assumption, according to a cited philosopher, encourages people to treat differences as pathologies?
ReplyDeleteThe assumption that human nature is biologically fixed.
2. What tacit rule did the Trump White House inherit from the Reagan administration?
ReplyDelete"The only serious threat to the American way of life came from other nation-states." In between natural disasters and public health crises, it can be easy to prioritize resources to issues that seem more imminent. The problem is that unless you invest in building up needed infrastructure, by the time a crisis does occur, it is already too late to stop deaths and problems that might've been preventable.