Bioethics
G REG B OGNAR
S TOCKHOLM U NIVERSITY
Spring semester, 2015
Course description. This course explores some of the most important issues in contemporary bioethics with a special emphasis on their relation to broader philosophical
concepts and problems. Topics include autonomy, paternalism, and the value of selfdetermination; the problem of moral status and the permissibility of killing; reproductive choices, selection against disabilities, and genetic enhancement; ethical issues of
emerging technologies and the allocation of scarce health care resources.
Topics and Readings
1 Consent and Autonomy
January 22
G ERALD D WORKIN . “Autonomy and Informed Consent.” In The Theory and Practice of
Autonomy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988, 100–120.
J ULIAN S AVULESCU AND R ICHARD W. M OMEYER . “Should Informed Consent Be Based
on Rational Beliefs?” Journal of Medical Ethics 23 (1997), 282–288.
2 Self-Determination and the Value of Choice
January 29
J. D AVID V ELLEMAN . “Against the Right to Die.” The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 17 (1992), 665–681.
G ERALD D WORKIN . “Is More Choice Better than Less?” Midwest Studies in Philosophy
7 (1982), 47–61.
3 Surrogate Decision Making and Personal Identity
February 5
R ONALD D WORKIN . Life’s Dominion. New York: Knopf, 1993, Chapter 8, 218–241
(only pages 218–237).
A LLEN B UCHANAN . “Advance Directives and the Personal Identity Problem.” Philosophy & Public Affairs 17 (1988), 277–302.
4 Moral Status
February 12
R. G. F REY. “Medicine, Animal Experimentation, and the Moral Problem of Unfortunate Humans.” Social Philosophy and Policy 13 (1996), 181–211.
A GNIESZKA JAWORSKA AND J ULIE TANNENBAUM . “Person-Rearing Relationships as a
Key to Higher Moral Status.” Ethics 124 (2014), 242–271.
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5 Causing People to Exist
February 19
D EREK PARFIT. Reasons and Persons. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984, Chapter 16,
351–379.
J EFF M C M AHAN . “Wrongful Life: Paradoxes in the Morality of Causing People to
Exist.” In John Harris (ed.) Bioethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001, 445–
475.
6 Disability and Quality of Life
February 26
J OHN H ARRIS . “One Principle and Three Fallacies of Disability Studies.” Journal of
Medical Ethics 27 (2001), 383–387.
E LIZABETH B ARNES . “Valuing Disability, Causing Disability.” Ethics 125 (2014), 88–
113.
7 The Social Consequences of Emerging Technologies
March 5
D AN W. B ROCK . “Shaping Future Children: Parental Rights and Societal Interests.”
The Journal of Political Philosophy 13 (2005), 377–398.
G REGORY S. KAVKA . “Upside Risks: Social Consequences of Beneficial Biotechnology.”
In Carl F. Cranor (ed.) Are Genes Us? The Social Consequences of the New Genetics.
New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1994, pp. 155–179.
8 Priority Setting
G REG B OGNAR AND I WAO H IROSE . The Ethics of Health Care Rationing: An Introduction. New York: Routledge, 2014, Chapters 3 and 5, 53–78 and 104–126.
March 12