“There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest…comes afterwards.” (Camus)
In a biomedical society like ours, the value of life (and our relation to it) becomes one of the most relevant factors for understanding who we are as human beings.
Schedule: TR 2:00-3:50pm (360 CON)
Office Hours: TR 4:00-5:00pm & by appointment - PLC 327
Announcements and Other Stuff:
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1)Final Papers are due on Friday, June 8th before 4:00pm in the main office of the Dept. of Philosophy (PLC 338).
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2)Extra Credit papers are due on Friday June 8th at 5pm.
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3)The EC will count as 1.25% towards your final grade. In order to get this credit, you have to go to the lecture, write 1p (single spaced) about the lecture, and send it to me (via email) before the end of the term (Friday, June 8th @ 5pm).
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4)Midterm Papers are due on May 4th before 4:00pm in the main office of the Dept. of Philosophy (PLC 338).
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5)Second EC opportunity - Aaron Rodriguez, April 26th 4pm EMU River Rooms
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6)Today April 19th - office hours are cancelled - due to department Talk (Paul Thompson).
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7)First EC opportunity - Prof. Paul Thompson, April 19th 4pm Mckenzie 129
Extra-credit Opportunities:
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1)Paul Thompson, The Fundamental Problem in Food Ethics
April 19th, 4:00pm Mckenzie Room 129 -
2)Aaron Rodriguez, The Significance of Art for a Pragmatist Approach to Ethics
April 26th, 4:00pm EMU River Room
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3)Jay Bernstein, Hannah Arendt Occupies Wall Street: Civil Disobedience and American Democracy Today - May 16th, 2:00 pm, Jacqua Center Auditorium
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4)Jay Bernstein, Democratic Bodies: The Abolition of Torture and the Uprising of the Rule of Law, May 17th, 4:00pm EMU Rivers Room
EC - means you go to a lecture, write 1p single spaced (summary), and email it to me before the end of the term.
Required Books:
Lewis Vaughn, Bioethics - Principles, Issues, & Cases (Oxford UP, 2010)
Additional Required Readings will be posted on Blackboard [BB].
Oxford University Press has set up a website with Student Resources (there are flashcards and quizzes for each chapter). I encourage you to use this tool. It will definitely help you in your learning process and also for the 5 quizzes you’ll be receiving over the term.
Invited Speakers:
Melissa Graboyes, Faculty Fellow, U of O
Topic: Informed Consent in Medical Research in Africa
Thursday, April 12th, 2012
Additional suggested readings/podcasts:
Week 1 - In addition to our readings for the first week of class, I encourage you to read Ch. 1 “Bioethics: The Science of Survival” (pdf) from Van Rensselaer Potter’s Bioethics: Bridge to the Future (Prentice-Hall, 1971). This is the book where the very concept of bioethics was coined.
Week 2 - Paternalism and Informed Consent. NPR recently had an interesting podcast called Should Patients See Their Doctors’ Notes? Alice Park says, “Well, a patient's record belongs to the patient, really. But I think it's really our health care system which has evolved into this, you know, paternalistic doctor-knows-best kind of structure where the doctor has been sort of the gatekeeper of all the medical information.”
Proxy Informed Consent - the Ashley treatment refers to a series of medical procedures that a child with severe developmental and cognitive disability underwent in 2004. When Ashley has shown signs of puberty, her parents have agreed on an series of medical procedures for their child: 1) hysterectomy (to prevent menstruation); 2) the surgical removal of her nascent breast bulbs (to prevent development); 3) appendectomy ; and she also completed estrogen therapy to speed up the natural closure of her growth plates. See, article by Ashley’s Mom and Dad.[thanks to G. Rodich for the pointer]
Trust in the Medical Profession - We have also mentioned the importance of historical facts in our medical decision making process and the trust we bestow on this profession. We should remind ourselves that various eugenics programs led to the imposition of compulsory sterilization programs for mentally retarded and mentally ill human beings in the US. Nearly 65.000 individuals have been sterilized in 33 states between 1907 (Indiana- 1st state to enact sterilization legislation) and 1981 (Oregon - last forcible sterilization). The reference book on this topic is written by Daniel Kevles, In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity.
For more details visit also the Eugenics Archive, which opens with Santayana’s great thought: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Week 3 - Peter Singer raises here an interesting argument against the sanctity of life view. See, “Sanctity of Life or Quality of life?”, Pediatrics, 72(1983):1, p.128-129
I encourage you to see also this great discussion between Peter Singer and Richard Dawkins.
Since we talked about the importance of self-concepts for defining personhood, this is the interesting case I told you about - the chimp who was planning to stone-throwing attacks on zoo visitors.
Week 4 - We talked about the disvalue of death. Shelly Kagan (Philosophy, Yale) has an interesting answer to the question: Is Death Bad for Us?
Week 5 & 6 - Nick Bostrom, Director of the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University talks about the Status-Quo Bias in relation to genetic enhancement.
Week 7 - we talked about Lewontin’s work in biology and the role of science in defining the non-moral descriptive premises of moral arguments. More on the role of science, and how it can become ideology, listen to Lewontin’ s Massey Lectures.
Week 8 - Movie “Right to Die, Assisted Suicide, Euthanasia” Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5.
Week 9 - Peter Singer wrote a great article in 2009 for the New York Times “We We Must Ration Health Care”
On the question of rationing scarce medical resources and justice - Reuters recently published an article called, “More Hispanics Die Waiting for a Heart Transplant”.
Week 10 - One of the best books, along the lines developed by Foucault, was published in 2006 by Princeton UP - Nikolas Rose, The Politics of Life Itself: Biomedicine, Power, and Subjectivity
At the end of the term, I recommend you also this recent piece from The Economist - “The Future of Medicine” (June 2nd, 2012).
