Bioethics Undergraduate Programs

Explores moral concerns and ethical decision-making in medicine and health care. Topics include health care reform informed consent, quality of life decisions, decisions to allow to die, rationing, futility, and scarcity of resources. In particular, we will analyze concerns regarding equality, justice, and individual rights to health care.

GE cultures and ideas course.

Provides a foundation in traditional ethics, a consideration of the subcategories of bioethics, neuroethics, and eugenics and instructs students in how to apply ethics to contemporary issues in research and technology. This course also satisfies the basic components of Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) education.

GE cultures and ideas course.

This course is designed as a forum for identifying and discussing moral, societal, and political issues in bioethics as represented through various forms of moving-image culture, primarily in film but also including still photography, television, and digital media.

The field of medical ethics has been and is continually shaped by major cases, both famous and infamous. This course surveys the causes and contexts, as well as the philosophical and ethical issues embedded within these cases.

This course will examine bioethical issues as they arise during pandemics, natural disasters and humanitarian crises. Historical and contemporary examples will be used to illustrate the ethical issues and moral dilemmas, and provide opportunities to develop ethical decision-making skills for such settings.

Readings in Bioethics entails a close reading of classic bioethics texts from Hippocrates through the beginning of the modern bioethics period (i.e., Fletcher, Ramsey, and Singer) and through the contemporary era. Religious and secular writings from diverse perspectives will be included. This course combines lecture presentation, class discussion, and student presentations.

This course serves to introduce students to the study of neuroethics, which concerns itself with ethical problems arising at the interface between philosophy and neuroscience. Reading broadly, it explores both how philosophy animates ethical discussion within neuroscience as well as how neuroscience has much to say to philosophers. Prereq: 2 courses in BIOETHC, or Grad standing, or permission of instructor.

This course offers an advanced introduction to disability bioethics. Students will become familiar with some of the central debates in contemporary disability bioethics. Topics may include competing models of disability; whether, all things being equal, having a disability makes one's life worse; and if it is permissible to try and "treat" or "cure" disabilities. Prereq: Grad standing, or permission of instructor.

To understand neuroscience is also to understand its impact on society. This course will examine the broader situation of contemporary neuroscience via the history of the field, how it is practiced now, and what that means looking towards the future. Students will engage with multiple disciplines to cultivate critical thinking, deepen awareness of their studies, and develop as professionals. Prereq: Permission of instructor.

As Artificial Intelligence is integrated into healthcare, new and old ethical challenges have arisen. Students will explore AI’s promise and perils by evaluating how AI tools are, and may be, used in medical treatment, clinical research, and bioethics itself. In so doing, we will evaluate how AI performs ethical reasoning and presents new benefits and risks to moral judgment and decision-making.

Choose a minimum of 9 credit hours in bioethics courses offered from the Division of Bioethics. Taking at least one 2000- or 3000-level course is recommended before a 5000-level course.

• 2000 Theory and Foundations of Bioethics (3)
• 2010 Ethics of Biomedical Science Research (3)
• 2020 Bioethics in Film, Media & Society: Explorations in Culture and Biopolitics (3)
• 3000 Case Studies in Medical and Health Care Ethics (3)
• 3880 Crisis Bioethics: Ethical Issues in Disasters, Pandemics and Humanitarian Crises (3)
• 4000 Readings in Bioethics (3)
• 5030 Neuroethics (3)
• 5040 Disability Bioethics (3)
• 5050 Evaluating Neuroscience in Society (2)
• 5060 Artificial Intelligence and Bioethics (1.5)

Choose up to 6 credit hours of the following bioethics-related elective courses to count towards the required 15 credits for the Bioethics Minor.

The following courses are examples—but not an exhaustive list—of approved electives. All electives not listed below must be approved by the Bioethics Minor Director or Assistant Director.

ANTHROP

• 5600 Evolutionary Medicine (3)
• 5602 Women’s Health in Global Perspective (3)

CLASSICS

• 2204 Medicine in the Ancient World (3)

CMPSTD

• 2340 Introduction to Cultures of Science and Technology (3)
• 4645 Cultures of Medicine (3)

COMM

• 4736 Health Communication in Interpersonal Contexts (3)
• 4737 Health Communication in Mass Mediated Contexts (3)
• 4738 Health Communication and New Media (3)

ENGLISH

• 3361 Narrative and Medicine (3)
• 4410 Healthcare Experiences: Observing, Reading, Writing (3)

HISTORY

• 2066 History of Medicine in Film (3)
• 2703 History of Public Health, Medicine and Disease (3)
• 3701 History of American Medicine (3)

HTHRHSC

• 2530 The Evolving Art & Science of Medicine (3)
• 4000 Application of Ethical Decision Making in Health Care (3)
• 5610 Death, Loss, and Grief in Multiple Perspectives (2)

PHILOS

• 2342 Environmental Ethics (3)
• 2650 Introduction to the Philosophy of Science (3)
• 3300 Moral Philosophy (3)
• 3341H Ethical Conflicts in Health Care Research, Policy, and Practice (3)
• 5300 Advanced Moral Philosophy (3)

PHR

• 3430 Quest for the Cure (3)
• 3500 Pharmacoethics: Dilemmas and Decision Making (3)
• 3530 Drugs, Human Enhancement and the Mastery of Nature (3)

PUBHLTH

• 2010(H) Intro to Global Public Health (3)

PUBHHBP

• 3510 Role of Behavior in Public Health (3)

SOCIOL

• 2290 Sociology of Death and Dying (3)
• 3630 Medical Sociology (3)
• 5450 Sociology of Global Health and Illness (3)

Required for graduation: No

Credit hours required: A minimum of 15. No 1000-level courses shall be counted in the minor. At least 6 credits must be at the 3000-level or above.

Transfer and EM credit hours allowed: A student is permitted to count up to 6 total hours of transfer credit and/or credit by examination.

Overlap with the GE: A student is permitted to overlap up to 6 credit hours between the GE and the minor.

Overlap with the major and additional minor(s):

• The minor must be in a different subject than the major.
• The minor must contain a minimum of 12 hours distinct from the major and/or additional minor(s).

Grades required:

• Minimum C- for a course to be listed on the minor.
• Minimum 2.00 cumulative GPA for all minor coursework.
• Coursework graded Pass/Non-Pass cannot count on the minor.
• No more than 3 credit hours of coursework graded Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory may count toward the minor.

X193 credits: No more than 3 credit hours.

Approval required: Coursework for the minor must be approved by the Center for Bioethics as the academic unit offering the minor.

Filing the minor program form: The minor program form must be filed at least by the time the graduation application is submitted to a college/school counselor.

Changing the minor: Once the minor program is filed in the college office, any changes must be approved by the Center for Bioethics as the academic unit offering the minor.