CALIFORNIA STATE POLYTECHNIC UNIVERSITY, POMONA
ACADEMIC SENATE
GENERAL EDUCATION COMMITTEE
REPORT TO
THE ACADEMIC SENATE
GE-016-034
PHL 433, BIOETHICS
INTERDISCIPLINARY SYNTHESIS COURSE – AREA B or C
General Education Committee
Date: 5/26/04
Executive Committee
Received and Forwarded
Date: 6/23/04
Academic Senate
Date: 9/22/04
First Reading
10/20/04
Second Reading
GE-016-034, PHL 433, BIOETHICS – INTERDISCIPLINARY SYNTHESIS
COURSE – AREA B or C
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Background
The College of Letters, Arts, and Social Sciences is proposing PHL 433 Bioethics as an
Interdisciplinary General Education course for Area B4 or C4.
Resources
David Adams
Discussion
This course was presented to the General Education Committee on March 29, 2004. The
course integrates ethics, natural sciences, and humanities, and has as prerequisites Areas A,
B2, B3, C2, C3. It requires students to apply oral and written communication skills. The
expected outcomes are clearly defined, and a justification statement in included, particularly as
regards the challenges posed by biotechnology. The assessment section of the ECO indicates
the tools used for assessment and how they relate to the development of familiarity with life
science terminology and ethical issues.
Recommendation
The GE Committee has found this course to be in compliance with the interdisciplinary
synthesis course guidelines for GE sub-areas B4 or C4. There were no comments on the
Undergraduate Studies website. The course was approved by the GE Committee on May 26,
2004 and is now forwarded to the Academic Senate for consideration.
GE-016-034, PHL 433, BIOETHICS – INTERDISCIPLINARY SYNTHESIS
COURSE – AREA B or C
CALIFORNIA STATE POLYTECHNIC UNIVERSITY
Pomona
I.
3
COURSE TITLE: Bioethics
DATE PREPARED: October 2003
PREPARED BY: David M. Adams
REVISED: May 2004
Catalog Description
PHL 433 Bioethics (4)
Critical examination of the moral implications of biomedical research, clinical practice, and
biotechnology. Exploration of emerging issues in biomedicine, including questions of life and
death, reproduction, genetics, and the allocation of biomedical resources. 4 lecture/discussion.
Prerequisites: Completion of General Education lower division requirements in Area A (A1, A2, and A3), and in Area B
(Mathematics and Natural Sciences), B2 and B3, and in Area C (Humanities), C2 and C3. Meets General Education
requirement as an Interdisciplinary Synthesis course fulfilling Area B or C.
II.
Required Background or Experience
Completion of courses in Area A, and in Area B (Mathematics and Natural Sciences), B2 and B3, and in Area C (Humanities), C2
and C3.
III.
Expected Outcomes
This course will be of interest to students who wish to understand the ever-expanding range and complexity of
bioethical issues confronting contemporary society, and who want o examine their own beliefs and values
regarding issues that will increasingly be debated in the broader culture. Students will see how the urgency and
frequency of bioethical controversies owes much to the magnitude and pace of technological change in the
provision of health care, from new ways to sustain the lives of terminally ill patients to prenatal diagnosis of fetal
abnormalities and various forms of assisted human reproduction. This course will also help students to
appreciate how advances in biology and medicine pose new challenges to problems of long standing, such as the
limits of confidentiality, truth-telling, and euthanasia. The central objective of the course, therefore, is to give to
students the basic knowledge and tools to participate as educated citizens in the on-going discussion of these
basic ethical questions.
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Students will understand the basic normative ethical theories and their implications for contemporary issues in
biomedical research, biotechnology, and medical decision-making.
Students will be able to argue for an ethically informed opinion on difficult moral questions in biomedicine.
Students will develop a basic competence in the vocabulary of biomedicine
Students will become aware of the current moral, legal and social context of such biomedical issues as determination
of death, use of life-sustaining medical interventions; provision of artificial nutrition and hydration, the use of
genetic information to shape reproductive choices, gestational surrogacy, human cloning, the allocation of scarce
biomedical resources, organ procurement; xenotransplatation and experimentation upon human subjects.
GE-016-034, PHL 433, BIOETHICS – INTERDISCIPLINARY SYNTHESIS
COURSE – AREA B or C
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IV.
4
Students will be able to identify the differences between consequentialist, deontological, and natural law accounts of
moral reasoning.
Students will be able to articulate the connections between emerging forms of biotechnology, the results of recent
advances in biomedical research, and the humanistic concern for an understanding of the meaning of life and death,
what it means to be human, the significance of reproduction, and the moral claims of medicine.
Students will be able to understand the legal and policy dimensions of bioethical issues.
Texts and Readings
Core Texts
Ronald Munson, Intervention and Reflection , 6th Ed. (Belmont: Wadsworth Publishing; 2000) [Ethical
Theory/Biology/Law]
Bonnie Steinbock, et. al., Ethical Issues in Modern Medicine, 6 th Ed., (Boston: McGraw-Hill; 2003). [Ethical
Theory/Biology/Law]
Richard Sherlock and John D. Morrey, Ethical Issues in Biotechnology (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield; 2002)
[Biotechnology/Ethics/Social Policy]
Helga Kuhse and Peter Singer (eds.) Bioethics: An Anthology (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers; 1999)
[Philosophy/Ethical Theory/Biology]
Supplementary Texts
Nancy S. Jecker, et. al., Bioethics: An Introduction to the History, Methods, and Practice (Boston: Jones and Bartlett; 1997).
[Medicine/Biology/Social Policy]
Mark G. Kuczewski and Ronald Polansky (eds.) Bioethics: Ancient Themes in Contemporary Issues (Cambridge: MIT Press;
2000) [Philosophy/Ethics]
Robert M. Veatch, The Basics of Bioethics Upper Saddle River: Prentice-Hall; 2000) [Philosophy/Ethical Theory]
Robert M. Veatch, Medical Ethics 2nd Ed. (Boston: Jones and Bartlett; 1997) [Philosophy/Ethical Theory]
Jeff McMahan, The Ethics of Killing: Problems at the Margins of Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2002)
[Philosophy/Ethical Theory]
Jerry Menikoff Law and Bioethics (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press; 2001) [Social Policy/Ethics]
Matt Ridley, Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters (New York: HarperCollins; 2000) [Molecular
Genetics/ Biology/Ethics]
Dena Davis, Genetic Dilemmas (New York: Routledge; 2001) [Genetic Biology/Ethics/Social Policy]
Jeremy Sugarman et.al., Ethics of Research with Human Subjects (Frederick, MD.: University Publishing Group; 1998)
[Biotechnology/Ethics/Law]
GE-016-034, PHL 433, BIOETHICS – INTERDISCIPLINARY SYNTHESIS
COURSE – AREA B or C
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Robert H. Blank, Brain Policy: How the New Neuroscience Will Change Our Lives and Our Politics (Washington D.C.:
Georgetown University Press; 1999) [Biology/Biotechnology/Neurosciences/Ethics/Social Policy]
Elisabeth Boetzkes and Wilfrid J. Waluchow (eds.) Readings in Health Care Ethics (Peterbourough: Broadview Press; 2000)
[Ethics/Medicine/Biology]
David Orentlicher, Matters of Life and Death (Princeton: Princeton University Press; 2001) [Ethics/Biology/Law]
Gregory E. Pence, Brave New Bioethics (Lanham, MD.: Rowman & Littlefield; 2002) [Ethics/Biotechnology/Law/Social
Policy]
Peter Horn, Clinical Ethics Casebook (Belmont: Wadsworth Publishing Co.; 1999) [Medicine/Biology/Ethics]
Gregory E. Pence, Classic Cases in Medical Ethics, 4th Ed. (Boston: McGraw-Hill; 2004) [Ethics/Biology/Law]
Margaret P. Battin, et. al., Physician Assisted Suicide (New York: Routledge; 1998) [Law/Ethics/Medicine/Biology]
Robert M. Veatch, Transplantation Ethics (Washington D.C.: Georgetown University Press; 2000)
[Biology/Ethics/Law/Social Policy]
Michael C. Brannigan, Ethical Issues in Human Cloning: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives (New York: Chatham House
Publishers; 2001). [Biology/Ethics]
Daniel Callahan, The Troubled Dream of Life (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press; 2000)
[Philosophy/Biology/Ethics]
Lori B. Andrews, The Clone Age (New York: Henry Holt: 2000) [Biology/Ethics/Social Policy]
Allen Buchanan, et. al., From Chance to Choice: Genetics and Justice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 2000)
[Reproductive Biology/Genetic Biology/Ethics]
Erik Parens (ed.) Enhancing Human Traits (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press; 1998).[Biology/Ethics]
Adrienne Asch and Erik Parens (eds.) Prenatal Testing and Disability Rights (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University
Press; 2000). [Biotechnology/Ethics/Law]
Karen G. Gervais, et al., Ethical Challenges in Managed Care: A Casebook (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University
Press; 1999). [Ethics/Medicine/Biology/Law]
Judith Areen, et al., Law, Science, and Medicine, 2nd Ed. (Westbury: Foundation Press; 1996. [Law/Biology/Medicine]
Raymond DeVries, et. al., Bioethics and Society: Constructing the Ethical Enterprise (Upper Saddle River: Prentice-Hall;
1998). [Ethics/Medicine/Biology/Law]
Matt Ridley, Nature via nurture : Genes, Experience, and What Makes us Human
(New York : Harper Collins 2003) [Biology/Philosophy/Ethics]
James D. Watson, with Andrew Berry, DNA :The Secret of Life (New York: Alfred A. Knopf: 2003) [Genetic
Biology/Ethics]
William S. Klug, Michael R. Cummings, Essentials of Genetics 4th Ed. (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall; 2002)
[Genetic Biology/Ethics]
GE-016-034, PHL 433, BIOETHICS – INTERDISCIPLINARY SYNTHESIS
COURSE – AREA B or C
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Michael Potts, et. al. (eds.), Beyond Brain Death : The Case Against Brain Based Criteria for Human Death (Boston: Kluwer
Academic Publishers; 2000) [Biology/Neurology/Ethics]
John Harris and Søren Holm (eds.), The Future of Human Reproduction : Ethics, Choice, and Regulation (Oxford:
Clarendon Press ;1998) [Biotechnology/Ethics/Law]
Robert P. Lanza, et. al, Principles of Tissue Engineering, 2nd Ed., (San Diego: Academic Press;2000)
[Biology/Biotechnology/Ethics]
Henk A.M.J. Ten Have, et. al., Ownership of the Human Body : Philosophical Considerations on the Use of the Human Body
(Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers; 1998) [Biology/Philosophy]
E. Richard Gold, Body Parts: Property Rights and the Ownership of Human Biological Materials (Washington, D.C.:
Georgetown University Press; 1997) [Philosophy/Biology/Ethics]
Philip Kitcher, The Lives to Come: The Genetic Revolution and Human Possibilities (New York: Simon and Schuster; 1996)
[Philosophy/Biology]
James P. Orlowski, Ethics in Critical Care Medicine (Hagerstown: University Publishing Group; 1999)
[Medicine/Biology/Ethics]
V.
Minimum Student Materials
Course Textbooks
VI.
Minimum College Facilities
Computer Labs, Library, Internet Access
VII.
Course Outline
V.
Moral Reasoning and Bio-Medical Decision-Making
VI.
1.
Basic Ethical Theories
Consequentialism
Kantian Ethics
Contractarian Ethics
Natural Law Ethics and Moral Theology
2.
Major Moral Principles
The Principle of Nonmaleficence
The Principle of Beneficence
The Principle of Utility
The Principle of Distributive Justice
The Principle of Autonomy
Determining Life and Death
1.
Defining Death
Cardiopulmonary Criteria
The Neurophysiology of the Brain and Central Nervous System
GE-016-034, PHL 433, BIOETHICS – INTERDISCIPLINARY SYNTHESIS
COURSE – AREA B or C
Brain-Death Criteria
Whole-Brain vs. Higher Brain Criteria
Conscience Clauses
VII.
VIII.
2.
Life-Sustaining Treatments: The Right to Refuse Unwanted Medical Interventions
Health Care Proxies and Living Wills
Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide
3.
Life-Sustaining Treatments: Specific Interventions
The Human Respiratory System
Withholding of Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation
Biology of Nutrition and Digestion
Withdrawal of Artificial Nutrition and Hydration
Urinary and Excretory Functions
Withholding of Renal Dialysis
Human Circulatory System
Withholding of Blood and Blood Products for Religious Reasons
4.
Treating Impaired Newborns
Congenital Impairments
Chromosomal Abnormalities and Anomalies
Anencephaly
Impairments and “Quality of Life”
Genetics and Ethics
1.
Mendelian and Molecular Genetics
Principles of Genetics
Dominance, Inheritance, and Gene-linkage
DNA Structure, Replication, and Gene Expression
2.
Genetic Interventions
Carrier Screening
Genetic Counseling
Preimplantation and Prenatal Genetic Diagnosis
3.
Ethical Implications of Human Genome Research
Gene Transfer Research
Somatic-Cell Gene Therapy
Germ-Line Gene Therapy
Genetic Enhancement of Human Traits
Assisted Reproductive Technologies
1.
Human Reproductive Biology
Meiosis
Gamete Formation
Fetal Development
2.
Manipulating Human Reproductive Materials
IVF, GIFT, and ZIFT
Cryopreservation of Gametes and Embryos
Gestational Surrogacy
Ownership of Gametes and Embryos
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GE-016-034, PHL 433, BIOETHICS – INTERDISCIPLINARY SYNTHESIS
COURSE – AREA B or C
3.
IX.
X.
VIII.
Human Cloning and Stem Cell Research
Cloning Embryos for Research Purposes
Cloning Embryos and Infertility
Allocation of Biomedical Resources
1.
Allocating Human Tissues and Organs
Models of Organ Procurement: Gift vs. Salvage
Live-donor Transplants
Paired Exchanges
Non-Heart-Beating Cadaveric Donors
Harvesting Organs from Anencephalic Neonates
The Ethics of Xenografts
UNOS Allocation Priorities
Role of Age and Risky Behaviors in Organ Allocation
2.
Rationing Medical Care
Theories of Justice and the Claim to Health Care
Managed Care and Rationing
Experimentation on Human Subjects
1.
The Scientific Method
Hypothesis Formulation
Experimentation and Analysis
2.
Origins of Human Subject Research Ethics
Nuremberg Code
The Willowbrook and Tuskegee Cases
The Belmont Report
3.
Biomedical Research and Medical Therapy
Placebos and Research
Consent and Experimentation
Ethics of Randomized Clinical Trials
4.
Research on “Vulnerable” Populations
Research involving Children
Research involving Prisoners
Research involving the Poor
Research involving the Terminally Ill
Instructional Methods
A variety of instructional methods will be used to help students achieve expected course outcomes and to integrate and
develop both written and oral communication skills. These methods include the following (together with the percentage
of overall class time expected to be devoted to each):
1. Lecture
2. Discussion of assigned reading
3. Small group activities
4. In-class journal writing
5. Web-based and other media
presentations (including films and videos).
50%
20%
10%
10%
10%
____
100%
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GE-016-034, PHL 433, BIOETHICS – INTERDISCIPLINARY SYNTHESIS
COURSE – AREA B or C
IX.
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Evaluation of Outcomes
1. A journal for the class will be required as a written record of the students’
thoughts and questions in response to readings and class discussion. The
journal is to reflect the student’s own engagement with the issues covered.
2. Papers will ask students to integrate their knowledge of the GE disciplinary
areas integrated by the course. Four papers for the course will also be assigned.
Two of the papers will focus upon developing a familiarity with the scientific basis
and biological complexity of bioethical issues. The two other papers will focus
upon developing skills at the moral analysis and evaluation of the fundamental
questions raised by biomedicine and biomedical research. At least one paper
assignment will have an in-class presentation option, for which the student may
opt to make a ten-minute in-class presentation instead of writing a paper.
3. Papers will be evaluated on the basis of three factors:
a. How well the student demonstrates his or her knowledge of the
problems, concepts, and arguments given to support the position being
defended in the paper;
b. The overall clarity of the explanations and arguments given to support
the position being defended in the paper, as well as the creativity of the
students’ responses;
c. The neatness of the work (organization, grammar, spelling, etc.)
Relative weightings of (a) through (c):
(a) 50%
(b) 40%
(c) 10%
____
100%
4. Participation in discussion of the course topics and materials.
5. Work for the course will be weighted as follows for purposes of computing the
final grade:
Each paper:
Journal:
Attendance and participation:
15%x4 = 60%
25%x1= 25%
15%x1= 15%
____
100%
X. Assessment
The course objectives and outcomes will be assessed as follows:
1. In both written assignment and in oral presentations, students will be asked to indicate in what
ways this course draws upon the themes, concepts, skills, and methods common to both the
Natural Sciences and to the Humanities, as covered in the courses they have taken from GE
Areas B and C.
GE-016-034, PHL 433, BIOETHICS – INTERDISCIPLINARY SYNTHESIS
COURSE – AREA B or C
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2. Students will also be asked to indicate the extent to which this course provided them with the
opportunity to integrate and synthesize knowledge and perspectives learned and discussed in
courses taken in GE Areas B and C. Questions which students will be asked to address may
include:
 In what ways do the basic concepts of normative ethics illuminate controversies in biology,
biotechnology, and biomedical research concerning, for example, withdrawal of lifesustaining medical interventions, the use of genetic information to shape reproductive
choices, gestational surrogacy, human cloning, the allocation of scarce biomedical
resources, and experimentation upon human subjects?
 In what ways have assumptions about the nature of moral reflection, and human choice
and action impacted debates about human biological structure and processes?
 What have been the historically most influential philosophical theories about the nature of
morality and ethics and their role in shaping human conduct?
 In what ways may human biological processes be supported or sustained “artificially”
through the use of sophisticated medical technologies? What is the sense in which these
interventions are artificial? How should it be determined when use of such technologies is
inappropriate? Who should be empowered to make such decisions?
 What do current understandings of human neurophysiology tell us with respect to the
appropriate criteria for determining death in a clinical setting?
 What are the primary chromosomal abnormalities that can occur in human offspring and
how are the impacts upon the individual’s potential “quality of life” to be assessed from a
moral point of view?
 In what ways do our scientific understandings of living organisms (e.g., organic
compounds, the biology of cells) inform our philosophical and moral beliefs about the
standards for determining when a human being is alive or dead?
 What kinds of information regarding an individual’s likelihood of developing specific
conditions or disease processes might be ascertained from an understanding of his or
her “genetic profile”? How, morally, ought that information to be used?
 According to current biological knowledge, would it be possible to clone a human being
using somatic cell nuclear transfer or similar methods? If so, would cloning a human
being be ethically permissible?
 Is it ever consistent with proper scientific methods to use placebos in clinical trials? If so,
under what circumstances?
3.
Finally, students will be asked to indicate the overall degree to which they believe the course has
helped them to gain an understanding for the interdisciplinary nature of the field of bioethics.