BIOETHICS
Instructional goals
Bioethical issues play a crucial role in individuals' personal choices, as well as in public policy and political decisions. This course introduces students to key contemporary bioethical issues, organised around three main areas: the bioethics of the beginning and end of life, and the ethics of human enhancement and AI. Particular focus is given to ethical-normative and ethical-political aspects. By the end of the course, students should be able to articulate the main arguments regarding the topics covered and develop their own position on these issues.
Intended learning outcomes
1) Knowledge and understanding - Students should be able to identify the main ethical theories relevant to bioethical debates and the key lines of argumentation regarding debates on the ethics of the beginning and end of life and on the Ethics of human enhancement and AI
2) Application of knowledge and understanding - Students should be able to apply the main normative models learned to real-world cases and current debates.
3) Judgment - Students should be able to independently form appropriate judgments on some of the major issues in contemporary bioethics.
4) Communication - Students’ communication skills should be enhanced through the use of PowerPoint presentations, class discussions, and group work
5) Lifelong Learning Skills - Students will improve their analytical skills and address the problems and dilemmas presented in order to assess situations and make decisions and arguments that—hopefully—will be useful throughout their lives.
Course Contents
The course aims to introduce, analyse and discuss some of the key topics in contemporary bioethics.
Bioethics is a product of the affirmation of individual freedom in democratic societies, as well as being one of the driving forces behind the progress of such societies. This course will explore the idea that bioethical issues such as abortion, assisted reproduction, medically assisted suicide, privacy, and AI, human enhancement are opportunities that enable people to make meaningful choices about their lives, rather than threats to established values and the sanctity of life. After an introduction to the main theoretical approaches to bioethics, several key themes will be presented. Students will also be presented with case studies and assigned relevant reading material for the bioethical debate. They will then be asked to discuss these in class, in order to understand how democratic societies should manage the plurality of moral opinions regarding such situations.
Reference Books
H. ten Have, Encyclopedia of Bioethics, Springer, 2016.
Teaching Methods
Lectures, class debates, and analysis of relevant bioethical papers
Assessment Method
- Mid-term exam (writing a short essay of 500 words): 30%;
- Final paper (a take-home paper on a topic of the course chosen by the student, between 4000 and 6000 words, including references and footnotes): 70%.
Thesis assignment criteria
The topic of the final paper will be assigned on the basis of the student's progress during the course and should be agreed with the teacher.
Week 1
Class 1- Detailed explanation of the course Syllabus
Class 2– Normative Ethics and Normative Bioethics
Reference reading material: T.L. Beauchamp, & J.F. Childress, Principles of Biomedical Ethics, Oxford U.P., 2019.
Week 2
Class 1- Narrow Bioethics and Global Bioethics
Class 2- Sanctity of Life Ethics and Quality of Life Ethics
Reference reading material:
P. Singer, Rethinking Life and Death, St Martin’s Press, New York 1995
Week 3
Class 1- Ethics at the beginning of life: abortion and conscientious objection
Class 2- Ethics at the beginning of life: abortion and conscientious objection
Reference reading material:
Judith Jarvis Thomson, A defense of abortion, in Philosophy & Public Affairs, 1(1), pp. 47-66;
J. Finnis, The Rights and Wrongs of Abortion: A Reply to Judith Thomson, in Philosophy&Public Affairs, 2(2), pp. 117-145
Week 4
Class 1- Medically Assisted Procreation Techniques
Class 2- Medically Assisted Procreation Techniques
Reference reading material:
K. MacKay, The ‘tyranny of reproduction’: Could ectogenesis further women’s liberation?, in Bioethics, 34, 2020, pp. 346-353
Week 5
Class 1- Natalism and Antinatalism
Class 2- Natalism and Antinatalism
Reference reading material:
D. Benatar, Why it is better never to come into existence, in American philosophical Quarterly, 34 (3), pp. 345-355
Week 6
Class 1- Ethics at the end of life: advance directives
Class 2- Ethics at the end of life: advance directives
Reference reading material:
C.B. Cohen, Philosophical challenges to the use of advance directives, in C. Khushf, The Handbook of Bioethics, Kluwer Academic Publisher, Amsterdam 2004, pp. 291-314
Week 7
Class 1- Ethics at the end of life: euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide
Class 2- Ethics at the end of life: euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide
Reference reading material:
J. Rachels, Active and passive euthanasia, in New England Journal of Medicine, 292(2), pp. 78-80
Week 8
Class 1 - Human enhancement debate
Class 2 - Human enhancement debate
Reference Reading material:
N. Bostrom, A history of trans humanist thought, in Journal of evolution and technology, 14(1), pp. 1-25
Week 9
Class 1 - Moral enhancement
Class 2 - Moral enhancement
Reference reading material:
I. Persson, J. Savulescu, The perils of cognitive enhancement and the urgent imperative to enhance the moral character of humanity, in Journal of Applied Philosophy, 25 (3), pp. 162-177
Week 10
Class 1- AI Ethics
Class 2- AI Ethics
Reference reading material:
M. Coeckelbergh, AI Ethics, The MIT Press, Cambridge 2020
Week 11
Class 1- Ethics of AI
Lezione 2- Ethics of AI
Reference reading material:
M. Coeckelbergh, AI Ethics, The MIT Press, Cambridge 2020
Week 12
Class 1- Final practical activities
Class 2- Final practical activities