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Courses - Spring 2024
PHIL
Philosophy Department Site
PHIL220
Bioethics: Regulating Right and Wrong
Credits: 3
Grad Meth: Reg, P-F, Aud
GenEd: DSHU or DSSP
Credit only granted for: PHIL209A or PHIL220.
Formerly: PHIL209A.
Bioethicists formulate ethical guidelines. They answer questions such as: When life-saving health resources are scarce, who should get them? Should we increase supply of one such resource, kidneys, by buying them from living "donors"? If drug trials in developing countries benefit patients who consent to participate, are the trials ethical, even if the same research would be forbidden in the US? If a sick person aims to hasten her death, how, if at all, might her doctor permissibly help her? In this course, students construct and defend ethical rules in four domains: research ethics, allocation of scarce resources, markets in organs, and physician-assisted dying.