CORE015 Bioethics I: Ethics of Life

Faculty of Science
Autumn 2023
Extent and Intensity
2/0/0. 3 credit(s). Type of Completion: k (colloquium).
Teacher(s)
prof. RNDr. Renata Veselská, Ph.D., M.Sc. (lecturer)
Guaranteed by
prof. RNDr. Renata Veselská, Ph.D., M.Sc.
Department of Experimental Biology – Biology Section – Faculty of Science
Contact Person: prof. RNDr. Renata Veselská, Ph.D., M.Sc.
Supplier department: Department of Experimental Biology – Biology Section – Faculty of Science
Timetable
Mon 15:00–16:50 B11/132
Prerequisites
This course has no prerequisites.
Course Enrolment Limitations
The course is offered to students of any study field.
The capacity limit for the course is 300 student(s).
Current registration and enrolment status: enrolled: 121/300, only registered: 0/300, only registered with preference (fields directly associated with the programme): 0/300
Course objectives
The aim of this course is to provide undergraduate students of any program with a general background in bioethics, including the context of its origins, history and methodological approaches. The content of this course will consist of individual topics with which a person is actually confronted during his/her life in relation to biomedicine and health care. Therefore, the lectures will deal with the ethical aspects of the above mentioned areas of human life, and the aim will not be to establish the (only) right moral position, but to identify all relevant ethical aspects of a given situation and especially to critically evaluate different moral positions. Throughout the whole course, ethical reasoning and justification will be demonstrated using real cases.
Learning outcomes
Upon completion of the course, the student will be able to:
− explain the origin and development of bioethics in a historical context;
− identify and describe the main ethical dilemmas in  individual areas of biomedicine and health care;
− understand and justify different types of argumentation in model case studies;
− provide a basic overview of relevant ethical codes and standards
Syllabus
  • 1. WHY HIPPOCRATS IS NOT ENOUGH (Hippocratic tradition and its collapse; historical changes in the doctor-patient relationship, paternalism vs. partnership; research scandals)
  • 2. BIOETHICS: 5W1H (relationship between ethics and morality; origin and establishing of bioethics as a new discipline; thematic defining; methodological approaches)
  • 3. FROM A PATIENT TO A CLIENT (biomedicine and the concept of human rights; codes of ethics and related legislation; informed consent; changing the basic paradigm of medicine, treatment vs. enhancement; conscientious objection)
  • 4. TOP SECRET (privacy in the context of health care; medical confidentiality; right to information; data protection)
  • 5. THE BEGINNING OF HUMAN LIFE (concept of procreative liberty; status of the embryo; abortion; sterilization; options and limits of infertility treatment)
  • 6. GENETIC TESTING: A GOOD SERVANT, BUT A BAD MASTER (possibilities of genetic testing; genetic testing and genetic screening; predictive and presymptomatic testing; genetic testing for non-medical purposes, recreational genetics)
  • 7. WHEN THE CANDLE GOES OUT (approaches to death; dysthanasia and euthanasia; refusal of treatment, concept of previously expressed wishes; medical futility; palliative care and the hospice movement)
  • 8. NOT JUST THE BODY (care for mental health; ethical codes and standards; ethical aspects of psychotherapy - autonomy, competence, confidentiality, therapist-client relationships; ethical aspects in psychiatry)
  • 9. GUINEA PIGS? (ethical standards for human subject research; therapeutic and non-therapeutic biomedical research, clinical trials; recruitment of research participants, vulnerable groups; behavioral research and research in social sciences)
  • 10. SUBDUE THE EARTH (concepts of environmental ethics: theocentrism, anthropocentrism, biocentrism, zoocentrism and ecocentrism; animal research; genetically modified organisms; precautionary principle)
  • 11. LESSONS LEARNED FROM COVID: ETHICS IN PANDEMIC TIMES (risk estimation and data analyses; professional competence and responsibility; limited access to the health care, allocation of scarce resources and triage principles; vaccination; autonomy vs. public health protection, long covid issues)
Literature
    recommended literature
  • VEATCH, Robert M. The basics of bioethics. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2000, xii, 180. ISBN 0130839760. info
  • The birth of bioethics. Edited by Albert R. Jonsen. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998, xiv, 431 p. ISBN 9780195171471. info
  • VAUGHN, Lewis. Bioethics : principles, issues, and cases. Fifth edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023, xv, 763. ISBN 9780197609026. info
Teaching methods
Lectures with the possibility of direct questioning. The course is taught in a contact format and individual lectures will be streamed. Recordings of the lectures will then be made available in the IS MU via the interactive syllabus along with the other supplementary materials. Thematic discussions in the IS MU will be also available for additional questions.
Assessment methods
Online colloquium via MS Teams (capacity 6 students for each colloquium term, duration 90 minutes). In a given term before the colloquium, each student has to provide a brief description of his/her chosen ethical dilemma from the topics discussed in the course. More detailed instructions for preparing these texts for the colloquium will be posted during the first week of the semester. Before the colloquium, students will read each other's texts and discuss them during the colloquium.
If a registered student does not submit his/her text prior to the colloquium, if the submitted text is identified as being not original, if the student is unable to discuss his/her own text, if the student does not engage in discussion, or if the student is found to be fundamentally ignorant of the topics covered during the course, the student will fail.
Language of instruction
Czech
Follow-Up Courses
Further Comments
Study Materials
The course is taught annually.
The course is also listed under the following terms Autumn 2024.
  • Enrolment Statistics (Autumn 2023, recent)
  • Permalink: https://is.muni.cz/course/sci/autumn2023/CORE015