Philosophy 181 - Medical Ethics

The COVID-19 pandemic throws important questions in medical ethics into sharp relief. What is the fairest way to distribute scarce medical resources, like ventilators? When testing new treatments and vaccines, what are the moral responsibilities of researchers? Do individuals have a moral right to refuse a vaccine? What restrictions can governments fairly impose on individual freedom in order to reduce the risk of transmission of illness? While the course makes use of examples from the current pandemic, the problems taken up are of interest in medical ethics generally. The goals of this course are to acquire an understanding of major moral theoretical approaches to ethics, to improve our understanding of the arguments on different sides of these questions, and to acquire some tools to critically evaluate those arguments.