GOVERNMENT
Course Level: Undergraduate
Topics vary by section, may be repeated for credit with different topic.
Course Level: Undergraduate
Selected Topics: Non-recurring (1-6)
Bioethics and Politics
Controversies in bioethics such as abortion, stem cell research, cloning, pharmaceutical behavioral modification, gamete donation, and many others roil contemporary politics. They also raise troubling questions about the modern scientific project to make human beings into masters and possessors of nature. This course starts from contemporary political controversies and raises fundamental questions about human nature, human freedom, and the promise and perils of biotechnology. Readings include contemporary texts from several different points of view on abortion, cloning, and other controversies and classic texts about the modern technological project such as Descartes's Discourse on Method, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go.