Ethics of Embodiment

3 Credits · Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Everybody needs a body. This course asks: what kinds of ethical demands do our bodily needs place on others? What are the boundaries of the body, and what rights to we have against unconsenting incursions into those boundaries? Are our bodily rights merely negative rights, or do we have rights to a body that works? If we have positive rights to certain bodily capacities or functions, what is their content? Do we have a right to health, or to adequate health care? Do we have other rights besides (or instead), like a right to a society that accepts and accommodates our bodies as they are, healthy or not? Or, do we have a right to transform our bodies, from how they are to how we would like them to be? The goal of the course is to address these general questions in the context of traditional and emerging problems in biomedical ethics.