Biomedical Ethics

Philosophy 226, Fall, 2012

Biomedical Ethics

Professor: Paul Thagard

Office hours (HH368): TTh 11-12; and by appointment.

Email: pthagard@uwaterloo.ca. Phone: 519-888-4567, extension 33594.

Web page: http://cogsci.uwaterloo.ca/courses/phil226.html.

Time: TTH, 8:30 - 9:50, PHY 145. To improve learning, please turn off all electronic devices such as phones, computers, and transcranial magnetic stimulators. See blog for reasons.

Description: A discussion of critical ethical issues in medical practice and research.

Textbook: E. Kluge, Readings in Biomedical Ethics, 3rd edn., 2005

Assignments: Marks will be based on:

3 exams: Oct. 4, Nov. 1, Nov. 29. Each is worth 23% of the total mark for the course. Students are responsible for material in the textbook and on the Web site. Review questions will be available before each exam.
3 exercises, due in class Sept. 27, Oct. 25, and Nov. 22, worth a total of 23%. These exercises will construct value maps (cognitive-affective maps) of important ethical issues.
One-minute essays. These will be written at the end of each class and will be worth a total of 8% of the final mark. You can miss 2 of these without penalty.
Assignments and exams must be completed on schedule except for documented cases of serious medical problems or family emergencies. Travel plans and workload from other courses are not legitimate excuses.

New: Instructions for exercise 3.

Guest lectures:

Oct. 18, Steve Abdool, St. Michael's Hospital, Toronto: "Confidentiality and the Duty to Disclose".
Nov. 6, Jill Oliver, William Osler Health System, Bramption: "Sex, Conceptual Change, and Ethics: How Changing What We Think Might Change What We Think We Should Do".

Readings:

Week	Dates	Topic	*Textbook chapter*
1	Sept. 11-13	Ethical theory	1
2	Sept. 18-20	Health care	2-3
3	Sept. 25-27	Resource allocation	4
4	Oct. 2-4	Patients, EXAM 1	5
5	Oct. 9-11	Informed consent	6-7
6	Oct. 16-18	Treatment	8-9
7	Oct. 23-25	Medical research	10-11
8	Oct. 30-Nov. 1	Personhood, EXAM 2	12
9	Nov. 6-8	Abortion and euthanasia	13-14
10	Nov. 13-15	Children and reproduction	15-16
11	Nov. 20-22	Reproductive technologies	17
12	Nov. 27-29	Global allocation, EXAM 3	Paul Farmer

From the Faculty of Arts:

All students registered in the courses of the Faculty of Arts are expected to know what constitutes academic integrity, to avoid committing academic offences, and to take responsibility for their actions. When the commission of an offence is established, disciplinary penalties will be imposed in accord with Policy #71 (Student Academic Discipline). For information on categories of offences and types of penalties, students are directed to consult the summary of Policy #71 which is supplied in the Undergraduate Calendar (section 1; on the Web at www.adm.uwaterloo.ca/infousec/Policies/policy71.htm). If you need help in learning what constitutes an academic offence; how to avoid offences such as plagiarism, cheating, and double submission; how to follow appropriate rules with respect to “group work” and collaboration; or if you need clarification of aspects of the discipline policy, ask your TA and/or your course instructor for guidance. Other resources regarding the discipline policy are your academic advisor and the Undergraduate Associate Dean. Students who believe that they have been wrongfully or unjustly penalized have the right to grieve; refer to Policy #70, Student Grievance, http://www.adm.uwaterloo.ca/infosec/Policies/policy70.htm.”

Faculty of Arts information on plagiarism and other offences.

Links

Ethics Updates

Canadian Bioethics Society

The Hastings Center for Bioethics

USA President's Council on Bioethics

Lecture notes

Note: Lecture notes and PDFs of slides for each week will be available on the Web by Monday afternoon. Updated notes will be marked 2012. If you want to print out notes with smaller or bigger letters, you can Edit the Preferences in your Web browser to change the font size. The notes include review questions to guide your exam preparation.

Week 1: Ethical theory. 2012