Amy E. Wendling                                                                     Office Hours:

Kyle White RAC 110                                                               M/W/F: 9-10am & 12-1 pm

wendlina@southwestern.edu                                                     and by appointment     

 

Biomedical Ethics

PHIL 18-273-01

Fall 2002

MWF 10-10:50 am

RAC 115

 

 

Ethics, along with logic, metaphysics, and epistemology, is one of the main branches of philosophy. . . Bioethics is the subfield of ethics that concerns the ethical issues arising in medicine and from advances in biological science.  One central area of bioethics is the ethical issues that arise in relations between health care professionals and patients.  A second area focuses on broader issues of social justice in health care.  A third area concerns the ethical issues raised by new biological knowledge of technology.

 

--Freely abridged from The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, 2nd Edition

 

Course Description:


Until the late modern period, scientists and ethicists were the same people.  For example, Aristotle writes treatises on biology as well as on ethics and politics.  Freud is trained as a medical doctor and works in neurological laboratories as well as writing cultural analysis and critique.  In our time, experts in science and experts in values analysis have been separated into different bodies and their accompanying institutions.  This has produced a need for the ersatz rejoining of what has been rent asunder.  This is why courses like this one are found in medical school curruicula throughout the Western world. 

 

Appling ethical principles and ideas to the region of objects we recognize as “bioethical”, we will explore the shared basis of values analysis and science.  The objects of our investigation will be as described above: relationships between patients and health care providers, social justice in health care, and technology.  The course emphasizes this final domain over the other two.  At the end of the course, you should be able speculate about how and why science and ethics have become separate in our own era, as well as what ethics are implicit in Western scientific enterprise and medical practice.

  

Required Texts:

 

Tom L. Beauchamp and LeRoy Walter’s Contemporary Issues in Bioethics, 5th edition,

            (Belmont: Wadsworth, 1999)

R. C. Lewontin   Biology as Ideology: The Doctrine of DNA
Donna Haraway’s Modest-Witness@Second-Millenium.  Femaleman- Meets-

Oncomouse

Film: Miss Evers’ Boys.  This will be shown in class.

 

Course Requirements:

 

1. Class Participation  – 30%

 

It is assumed that you will carefully do the reading, ponder its contents, and attend all class sessions.  In addition, you will be required to express your philosophical ideas verbally in the class itself as a demonstration of your preparation, learning, and development as a bioethical theorist.  If you are an agoraphobe, this will be your chance to work on developing the skills of self-expression in public.  If you are an inveterate agoraphobe, please come to discuss it with me, but know that it will probably effect this portion of your grade.

 

2.  In-class Examinations – 30%

 

You will spend the fifty-minute course period writing in-class in response to prompts.  There will be three of these exams.

 

3.   Final Paper – 40%

 

You will write a final paper of 5-7 pages, in which you apply material learned in the course to the situation portrayed in the film Miss Evers’ Boys.  The paper will be due during final exam week, and we will discuss it in detail later in the course.

 

Schedule of Readings and Assignments

 

This schedule is divided into the following themes:

 

  1. Ethical Frameworks

II.   Relationships

III.  Social Justice

IV.  Technology

V.   Technology and Ideology: Lewontin and Haraway

 

 

M, 8/26            Introductory Lecture and Syllabus Discussion: The Regionalization of

Ethics

W, 8/28           Second Introductory Discussion: The Philosophical History of Ethics     

F, 8/30             Catherine Myser, “How Bioethics is Being Taught”

 

W, 9/4             Ethical Frameworks I: Beauchamp/Walters, pages 1-18

F, 9/6               Ethical Frameworks II: Beauchamp/Walters, pages 18-30

 

M, 9/9              Practitioners Codes and Patients’ Rights: Beauchamp/Walters, pages 33-

                        45 and 69-77

W, 9/11           More than one Kind of Patient: Beauchamp/Walters, pages 78-98

F, 9/13             Information: Beauchamp/Walters, pages 133-148 and 177-185

 

M, 9/16            First In-Class Examination

W, 9/18           Research on Sentients I: Beauchamp/Walters, pages 433-448

F, 9/20             Research on Sentients II: Beauchamp/Walters, pages 449-469

                       

 

M, 9/23            Distributive Justice I: Beauchamp/Walters, pages 355-379

W, 9/25           Distributive Justice II: Beauchamp/Walters, pages 380-405

F, 9/27             Distributive Justice III: Beauchamp/Walters, pages 406-422

 

M, 9/30            Reproductive Technology I: Beauchamp/Walters, pages 607-621; 633-634

W, 10/2           Reproductive Technology II: Beauchamp/Walters, pages 635-665       

F, 10/4             Reproductive Technology III, Cloning: Beauchamp/Walters, pages 674-684

 

M, 10/7            The Genome: Beauchamp/Walters, pages 545-572 OR AIDS:

Beauchamp/Walters, pages 695-726

W, 10/9           Second In-Class Examination

F, 10/11           Class cancelled; please use the time to read for Wednesday’s lengthy

                        assignment

 

W, 10/16         Lewontin,  “Preface”, “A Reasonable Skepticism”, and “All in the Genes”,

                        Pages vii-38

F, 10/18           Lewontin, “Causes and their Effects”, pages 39-58

 

M, 10/21          Lewontin, “The Dream of the Human Genome”, pages 59-84

W, 10/23         Lewontin, “A Story in Textbooks”, pages 85-104

F, 10/25           Lewontin, “Science as Social Action”, pages 105-125

 

M, 10/28          Third In-Class Examination

W, 10/30         Discussion meeting: no new readings.

F, 11/1             Haraway, Introduction to “Pragmatics”, pages 125-130

 

M, 11/4            Haraway, “Gene”, pages 131-154

W, 11/6           Haraway, “Gene”, pages 154-172

F, 11/8             Class cancelled; Please use the time to catch up and/or read ahead

 

M, 11/11          Haraway, “Fetus”, pages 173-192

W, 11/13         Haraway, “Fetus”. pages 192- 212

F, 11/15           Haraway, “Race”, pages 213-237

 

M, 11/18          Haraway, “Race”, pages 237-265

W, 11/20         In Class Film: Miss Evers’ Boys

F, 11/22           In Class Film: Miss Evers’ Boys

 

M, 11/25          Miss Evers’ Boys: The final 18 minutes, followed by discussion

 

M, 12/2            No new readings; discuss final papers

W, 12/4           No new readings; discuss the relations between science and ethics

F, 12/6             No new readings; continue Wednesday’s discussion

 

12/9-12/13       Final Exam Week

 

Course Policy

 

A student with a verified disability may be entitled to appropriate academic accommodations.  Please go to SU’s academic services office in Mood-Bridwell 311.

 

 

Second Biomedical Ethics Exam.  Choose 3 of 5

 

  1. How does John Rawls suggest we deal with questions of distributive justice?
  2. What was the Tuskegee study?  What fundamental biomedical issues does it raise?
  3. Should we be able to buy surrogacy services?  What do we buy when we do so?
  4. If you read AIDS, explain the following citation and interpret its relationship to the cluster of problems outlined in the reading:  “In the modern world, particularly in industrial societies, inequalities in morbidity and mortality are often more social than biological phenomena”(Beauchamp/Walters 1999, 722)

If you read Genome, discuss the following citations and their relationship to one another: “The committee felt strongly that. . . reproductive genetic services should not be used to pursue eugenic goals, but should be aimed at increasing individual control over reproductive options”(Beauchamp/Walters 1999, 563) YET “Common sense tells us that if scientists find ways to greatly improve human capabilities, there will be no stopping the public from happily seizing them”(ibid., 555).

 

Final Paper: Bioethics

 

Due Date:  Wednesday, Dec 11 at noon in the box outside of my office door

 

Length:  5-7 pages.  I will count off for both excesses and deficiencies.

 

Topic:  Apply “material learned in the course” to the situation portrayed in Miss Evers’ Boys.  The paper should bear on ethical questions and make ethical judgments (i.e. judgments about wrong and right).

 

Possible Angles on topic:

1.  How was each of the fundamental principles of bioethics violated by the study?

2.  Does Eunice Evers act wrongly or rightly?

3.  Analyze Miss Evers’ boys with respect to the issue of equipoise.

4.  How is the scientific treatment of race at issue in the film?

 

Topics of your own choosing are also acceptable, so long as they fit the prompt and meet all of the expectations below.

 

Expectations:

 

I expect you to have a central thesis, angle, or spin that you are arguing throughout the paper.  I expect the papers to be free of grammatical and spelling errors and written in Standard English.  I expect you to use textual evidence (i.e. citations) from course texts.  In a paper of 5-7 pages, this should be a minimum of five citations from three different textual sources IN ADDITION TO the film (textbook articles will be considered as separate, and you may cite from Dr. Bowen’s lectures, but also take care to demonstrate that you read broadly).  The citations should not be chosen at random but should meaningfully relate to your central thesis AND to one another.

 

Ideally, the paper should be like a full answer to a single test question, only presented in detail rather than in outline.  It should demonstrate the breadth of your understanding of course material (this will show in your choice of a topic) and the depth of your understanding, insight, and critical philosophical analysis (this will show in the construction of your argument).  I recommend putting your papers through several drafts.  For help on constructing arguments, please consult A Rulebook for Arguments or a similar text.  For help on using the English language clearly and well so that your points come through, see any edition of Strunk and White’s Rules for English Grammar.

 

Finally:

 

Feel free to bring up paper concerns and questions in the remaining class sessions.  These sessions have no further reading assignments and can be used as workshops in which your peers and I will help you to hash out your ideas.