22 July, 2008

Lecture 1

The Emergence of Bioethics in the 1970s – Bioethics as Originally Made in America

This session will explore the cultural and moral forces that led to the emergence and flourishing of bioethics in America in the 1970s and its export across the world. The presentation will examine how this first bioethics was marked by a particular set of unexamined moral and social assumptions that have no necessary claim to being normative for China.

23 July, 2008

Lecture 2

Autonomy, Beneficence, Non-Maleficence, and Justice – The So-called Principles of Bioethics Critically Re-examined

There is not one set of principles at the core of bioethics, despite the initial impression given by the widespread acceptance of the account provided by Beauchamp and Childress in Principles of Biomedical Ethics. This session will provide a critical re-examination of the ambiguity of beneficence and of individual autonomous choice versus the role of the family and family consent. Attention will be directed to how the bioethics of Beauchamp and Childress favors the deconstruction of family integrity and autonomy.

24 July, 2008

Lecture 3

Bioethics in the Face of Moral Pluralism – Why There is No Global Bioethics

This session will examine the character of moral pluralism and its implications for both national and international health care policies. A major accent will be on the likely development of competing local bioethics, such as a bioethics grounded in Chinese cultural commitments.

25 July, 2008

Lecture 4

The Allocation of Health Care Resources – Competing Visions

National health care systems across the world are in crisis, because it is impossible to give all citizens the best of care and equal care, given the unavoidability of human finitude. Emphasis will be given to comparing the moral assumptions of social-democratic approaches to health care as exist in Canada and Western Europe, with the Singapore model.