(4 cr. hrs.)

Instructor: Richard Miller
Email: miller3@indiana.edu

Tu 4:00 - 6:00PM, Sycamore Hall 006

Class meets with REL-R 672 and REL-R 770

Bioethics emerged in the United States in the late 1960s as part of
our culture=s growing concern for individual rights and its critique
of professional (and other) authority.  This course surveys the
social history of and leading figures in modern bioethics, focusing
on scholars who have shaped academic writing and public policy in
the United States.  Key topics include human experimentation, death
and dying, organ transplantation, allocation of scarce resources,
alternative healing practices, reproductive technologies, and
visions of enhancement.  These issues link up with ideas about the
body, identity, freedom, commitment, and visions of human welfare.
As we proceed, we’ll encounter the impressive methodological
richness in bioethics, focusing on philosophical, theological,
comparative, and ethnographic methods.