PHIL 110 Introduction to Bioethics (5 credits)
Distribution Area Fulfilled Humanities; General Transfer Elective
Course Description
An introduction to the major ethical issues concerning genetics, biotechnology and modern medicine, including ethical issues surrounding stem cell research, human and animal cloning, genetically modified plants and gene therapy.
Course Content
A. Definition of ethics, bioethics, and medical ethics
B. Consequentialist ethics, duty ethics, and virtue ethics
C. Philosophical definitions of “human” and “person”
E. The principle of respect for autonomy
F. Definition of justice and the “just” distribution of medical technologies
G. The precautionary principle
H. The principle of beneficence
I. The doctrine of double effect
Student Outcomes
1. Describe the disciplines of ethics/moral philosophy, bioethics, and medical ethics.
2. Describe and recognize the distinctions between consequentialist, duty, and virtue ethics. Evaluate and critique these approaches and apply them to bioethical arguments.
3. Identify and explain the important distinction between a human and a person.
4. Examine and critique the arguments concerning the use of animals and humans for medical research.
5. Outline the various issues surrounding “the principle of a respect for autonomy.”
6. Analyze issues of justice surrounding patents on biology, plants, and animals. Examine and critique the justifications for and against such property rights and determine which practice is most just.
7. Understand the stem cell controversy and the various contemporary arguments presented for and against such research. Examine and critique the ethical conclusions drawn from using the principles of beneficence and other philosophical principles.
8. Analyze the arguments surrounding the cloning of animals and humans using the principle of beneficence.
9. Summarize the advantages and disadvantages of genetic therapies and modifications and analyze this in ethical terms.
10. Outline the use of biotechnology in relation to food sources. Contrast the various arguments concerning the genetic manipulation of plants and animals using the precautionary principle. Formulate an individual response.
11. Construct an ethical response to individual biotechnology issues. Defend position with moral theories and well-constructed philosophical argument.
Degree Outcomes
Humanities: Graduates acquire skills to critically interpret, analyze and evaluate forms of human expression, and create and perform as an expression of the human experience.
Critical, Creative, and Reflective Thinking: Graduates will evaluate, analyze, synthesize, and generate ideas; construct informed, meaningful, and justifiable conclusions; and process feelings, beliefs, biases, strengths, and weaknesses as they relate to their thinking, decisions, and creations.
Lecture Contact Hours 50
Lab Contact Hours 0
Clinical Contact Hours 0
Total Contact Hours 50
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