24.06
Bioethics
Considers ethical questions that have arisen from the growth of biomedical research and the health-care industry since World War II. Should doctors be allowed to help patients end their lives? If so, when and how? Should embryos be cloned for research and/or reproduction? Should parents be given control over the genetic make-up of their children? What types of living things are appropriate to use as research subjects? How should we distribute scarce and expensive medical resources? Draws on philosophy, history, and anthropology to show how problems in bioethics can be approached from a variety of perspectives.
Spring 2009
Topics
- Introduction to the course
- From euthanasia to assisted suicide
- Euthanasia
- Killing for the greater good I
- Killing for the greater good II
- Killing vs. letting die
- Withdrawal of life support
- Withdrawal of life support and the ICU
- Neonatal dilemmas
- Are people organisms?
- Neonatal dilemmas and personal identity
- The ethics of abortion I
- History and abortion
- The morality and legality of abortion
- The ethics of abortion II
- Obligations of pregnancy
- The obligations of pregnancy and Thomson on abortion
- Procreation and future people I
- Procreation and future people II
- The non-identity problem
- Eugenics and its legacies
- Genetic engineering
- From eugenics to genetic engineering
- Slippery slopes
- Enhancing or cheating
- Enhancing, treating, and cheating
- The political economy of organs
- Valuing lives I
- Valuing lives II
- Utilitarianism
- Rationing health care
- Valuing lives III
- Rationing health care and valuing lives
- Public health vs. individual rights?
- Public health and individual responsibility
- Rights, responsibilities, and public health
- Self binding
- Conclusions
Readings
- Kuhse, Helga. “Critical Notice: Why Killing is Not Always Worse—and is Sometimes Better—Than Letting Die.” Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 7, no. 4 (1998): 371-374.
- Lock, Margaret. “Technology in Extremis.” In Twice Dead: Organ Transplants and the Reinvention of Death . Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2001, pp. 57-75. ISBN: 9780520228146.
- Kaufman, Sharon. “Life Support.” Chapter 7 in And a Time to Die: How American Hospitals Shape the End of Life . Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2006. ISBN: 9780226426853. (Read pp. 236-255, 259-265.)
- Stinson, Robert, and Peggy Stinson. “On the Death of a Baby.” Atlantic Monthly 244 (1979): 64-72.
- Singer, Peter, and Helga Kuhse. “The Future of Baby Doe.” The New York Review of Books 31, no. 3 (1984): 17-22.
- SES #: L7 · TOPICS: Are people organisms? · READINGS: Olson, Eric. “An Argument for Animalism.” Chapter 12 in Personal Identity . Edited by Raymond Martin and John Barresi. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing, 2002. ISBN: 9780631234425.
- Tooley, Michael. “Abortion and Infanticide.” Philosophy and Public Affairs 2, no. 1 (1972): 37-65.
- Reagan, Leslie J. “‘About to Meet Her Maker’: Women, Doctors, Dying Declarations, and the State’s Investigation of Abortion, Chicago, 1867-1940.” Journal of American History 77, no. 4 (1991): 1240-1264.
- Oaks, Laury. “The New Rules of Pregnancy.” Chapter 2 in Smoking and Pregnancy: The Politics of Fetal Protection . New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2001. ISBN: 9780813528885. (Read pp. 19-24, 38-52.)
- SES #: L12 · TOPICS: Procreation and future people I · READINGS: Parfit, Derek. “The Non-Identity Problem.” Chapter 16 in Reasons and Persons . New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1986, pp. 351-380. ISBN: 9780198249085.
- SES #: L13 · TOPICS: Procreation and future people II · READINGS: Parfit, Derek. “The Repugnant Conclusion.” Chapter 17 in Reasons and Persons . New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1986, pp. 381-390. ISBN: 9780198249085.
- Kevles, Daniel J. “International Eugenics.” In Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race . Edited by Dieter Kuntz and Susan Bachrach. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 2006. ISBN: 9780807829165.
- Guterman, Lila. “Choosing Eugenics: How Far Will Nations Go to Eliminate a Genetic Disease?” Chronicle of Higher Education 49, no. 34 (2003): A22-A26.
- Rogers, Michael. “The Pandora’s Box Congress.” Rolling Stone (June 19, 1975): 37-40, 42, 74, 77-78, and 82.
- Rifkin, Jeremy. “Ultimate Therapy: Commercial Eugenics in the 21st Century.” Harvard International Review 27 (2005): 44-48.
- SES #: L16 · TOPICS: Slippery slopes · READINGS: den Hartogh, Govert. “The Slippery Slope Argument.” Chapter 28 in A Companion to Bioethics . 2nd edition. Edited by Peter Singer and Helga Kuhse. New York, NY: Blackwell Publishing, 2009. ISBN: 9781405163316.
- Elliot, Carl. Better Than Well: American Medicine Meets the American Dream . New York, NY: W.W. Norton, 2003. ISBN: 9780393052015. (Read pp. xv-xxi, 28-34, 50-53, and 119-128.)
- Sandel, Michael J. “Bionic Athletes.” Chapter 2 in The Case Against Perfection: Ethics in the Age of Genetic Engineering . Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2009. ISBN: 9780674036383.
- Annas, George J. “The Prostitute, the Playboy, and the Poet: Rationing Schemes for Organ Transplantation.” American Journal of Public Health 72, no. 2 (1985): 187-189.
- Ubel, Peter A. “The Necessity of Rationing Health Care.” In Contemporary Issues in Bioethics . 7th ed. Edited by Tom L. Beauchamp, LeRoy Walters, Jeffrey P. Kahn, and Anna C. Mastroianni. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing, 2007. ISBN: 9780495006732.
- SES #: L22 · TOPICS: Valuing lives III · READINGS: Harris, John. “The Value of Life.” In The Value of Life . New York, NY: Routledge, 1985, pp. 87-102. ISBN: 9780710204370.
- Colgrove, James, and Ronald Bayer. “Manifold Restraints: Liberty, Public Health, and the Legacy of Jabobson v Massachusetts.” American Journal of Public Health 95, no. 4 (2005): 571-576.
- Knowles, John H. “The Responsibility of the Individual.” Daedalus 106 (1977): 57-80.
Prerequisites & course information
Same subject as STS.006[J] Prereq: None Acad Year 2027-2028: U (Fall) Acad Year 2028-2029: Not offered 3-0-9 units. HASS-H; CI-H
Sources
- Course catalogue ↗2026–2027
- MIT OpenCourseWare ↗Spring 2009
- MIT OCW readings ↗
- MIT OCW calendar ↗
- MIT OCW syllabus ↗
- Historical MIT OpenCourseWare offering. Named reading entries and schedule topics are automatically extracted from the linked source pages.