Bioethics for Beginners



Overview

Do you think reproductive cloning is morally permissible? Do you check food labels to exclude any with GM ingredients? Would you worry if the government introduced compulsory depositing of DNA in the national DNA bank?

If so, you will be interested in this ten week online course for the thinking lay person. It will give you an introduction to the ethical and social implications of advances in medicine, biology, and technology - without assuming prior knowledge of the science. Among our topics will be cloning, GM (genetic modification), increases in life span, genetic differences in race and gender, genetics and human nature, clinical trials in the developing world, eugenics, private markets in organs for transplant and the ownership of human tissue.

The course will introduce you to these knotty problems through guided readings, online discussion, case studies and other activities as enjoyable as they are useful. We shall also consider the power of the media in opinion-forming, the realisation that equally rational people can form different opinions on the same issues, and how scientists can best deal with the social and ethical context in which they work.

This course has no live sessions. You will study structured materials at your own pace each week. Find out more about how our short online courses are taught.

Programme details

The course is broken down into 10 units over 10 weeks, each requiring approximately 10 hours of study time. The following topics are covered:

Unit 1: Argument and the implications of enhancing lifespan

Introduction to the course, to bioethics and to the analysis of argument in the context of a discussion of the possibility of significantly increasing human lifespan.

  • Would you like to live for 1000 years?
  • Background
  • Increased longevity and the individual
  • Increased longevity and society
  • The nature of argument
  • Identifying, analysing and evaluating arguments
  • Analysing and evaluating arguments activity

Unit 2: Reproductive ethics

The ethics of reproduction. Does everyone have the right to a family? Is reproductive cloning morally acceptable? How would you feel if you discovered your mother had been aborted at 24 weeks?

  • A history of assisted reproduction
  • The ‘right’ to reproduce
  • Rights for all
  • When rights conflict
  • Donors and confidentiality
  • A ready source of gametes?
  • Cloning
  • Reproductive cloning

Unit 3: Absolutism and relativism I

Is morality relative or absolute? This philosophical unit will discuss these deep issues, with an eye to using the thoughts stimulated to further our thoughts about bioethics.

  • The nature of moral relativism
  • Evaluating the arguments for moral relativism: the first argument
  • Evaluating the arguments for moral relativism: the second argument
  • Evaluating the arguments for moral relativism: the third argument
  • Evaluating the arguments for moral relativism: the fourth argument

Unit 4: Absolutism and relativism II

  • Arguments for moral absolutism
  • First assignment

Unit 5: Genetics and human nature

Genetics and human nature. Could it be that by interfering with the human genome, either by enhancement or therapy we would be threatening the very nature of what it is to be a human being?

  • Pinker’s dangerous idea
  • Eugenics
  • Positive and negative
  • Elimination
  • They would themselves rather not be born
  • Positive interventions

Unit 6: Genetic modification

Does our new understanding of genetics make a new eugenics movement acceptable? Would we end up with the problems that we abhore in the Nazis’ programme, or could it be that the new technology will bring a new benign eugenics?

  • Research and feedback on transgenic organisms
  • Reading
  • The natural and the good

Unit 7: Virtue ethics and deontological ethics

Another philosophical unit considering various ethical theories such as Virtue Theory and Kantianism.

  • Kneejerk answers to our question
  • Aristotle and virtue ethics
  • Requirements for virtue
  • Two points to note
  • Aristotle’s answer to our question
  • Immanuel Kant and deontological ethics
  • Kantian decision procedures
  • Three points to note
  • Kant's answer to our question

Unit 8: Utilitarianism

Another philosophical unit considering various ethical theories such as Utilitarianism.

  • The usefulness of the decision procedure
  • Utilitarianism and rules
  • Is there really a distinction between Act Utilitarianism and Rule Utilitarianism?
  • Utilitarianism’s answer to our question
  • Optional reading
  • Choosing between theories
  • Second assignment

Unit 9: Therapeutic cloning

Therapeutic cloning and the moral status of the embryo. Is it acceptable to use embryos as means to the ending of suffering?

  • Therapeutic cloning
  • What is it to be a person?
  • Cloning, the moral law and the law of the land
  • Euthanasia

Unit 10: Bioethics and the developing world

The ethics of biotechnology in the devloping world. Should there be a market in human organs? Should there be double standards in clinical trials given the very different conditions in the developing world and the developed world?

  • A market in human organs
  • Clinical trials and double standards
  • Intellectual property rights and generic drugs
  • Concluding questions
  • Like to learn more?


We strongly recommend that you try to find a little time each week to engage in the online conversations (at times that are convenient to you) as the forums are an integral, and very rewarding, part of the course and the online learning experience.

Textbooks

To participate in the course you will need to have regular access to the Internet and you will need to buy the following books:

  • Talbot, M., Bioethics: An Introduction, Cambridge University Press, 2012 (ISBN 978052714594)

Please ensure you are able to access copies of any required textbooks prior to enrolling on a course but please keep in mind that courses with insufficient students enrolled will be cancelled. The Department accepts no responsibility for books bought in anticipation of a course running.

Certification

Credit Application Transfer Scheme (CATS) points 

Coursework is an integral part of all online courses and everyone enrolled will be expected to do coursework. All those enrolled on an online courses are registered for credit and will be awarded CATS points for completing work at the required standard.

See more information on CATS points

Digital credentials

All students who pass their final assignment will be eligible for a digital Certificate of Completion. Upon successful completion, you will receive a link to download a University of Oxford digital certificate. Information on how to access this digital certificate will be emailed to you after the end of the course. The certificate will show your name, the course title and the dates of the course you attended. You will be able to download your certificate or share it on social media if you choose to do so. 

Please note that assignments are not graded but are marked either pass or fail. 

Fees

Description Costs
Course Fee £415.00

Funding

If you are in receipt of a UK state benefit, you are a full-time student in the UK or a student on a low income, you may be eligible for a reduction of 50% of tuition fees. Please see the below link for full details:

Concessionary fees for short courses

Tutor

Dr Aisha Malik

Dr. Aisha Y. Malik (MBBS, M.Phil., MSc, D.Phil), a haematologist by training, teaches/facilitates medical ethics (after obtaining her D. Phil), as a Senior Teaching Fellow and now as Associate Tutor  (part-time) at Warwick Medical School. She  worked as Senior Research Fellow on the PMC project at HSMC, University of Birmingham. She also teaches medical ethics at medical institutions in Pakistan and is an Associate of The Phronesis Foundation. Her areas of interest are Phronesis and decision making,  Gender and decision making and  Justice in international research. 

Teaching methods

  •  Guided reading of texts.
  •  Group discussions of particular issues.
  •  Questions to be answered in personal folders.
  •  Debating from positions given rather than from personal belief (to hone skills of debate).

 

Learning outcomes

By the end of this course students will have gained the following skills:

  • The ability to think philosophically.
  • The ability to describe key issues in bioethics.
  • The ability to identify arguments for and against various positions in bioethics.
  • The ability to construct their own arguments about the issues to which they have been introduced.

Assessment methods

You will be set two pieces of work for the course. The first of 500 words is due halfway through your course. This does not count towards your final outcome but preparing for it, and the feedback you are given, will help you prepare for your assessed piece of work of 1,500 words due at the end of the course. The assessed work is marked pass or fail.

 

Application

Please use the 'Book' or 'Apply' button on this page. Alternatively, please complete an Enrolment form for short courses | Oxford University Department for Continuing Education

Level and demands

FHEQ level 4, 10 weeks, approx 10 hours per week, therefore a total of about 100 hours.

English Language Requirements

We do not insist that applicants hold an English language certification, but warn that they may be at a disadvantage if their language skills are not of a comparable level to those qualifications listed on our website. If you are confident in your proficiency, please feel free to enrol. For more information regarding English language requirements please follow this link: https://www.conted.ox.ac.uk/about/english-language-requirements

IT requirements

This course is delivered online; to participate you must to be familiar with using a computer for purposes such as sending email and searching the Internet. You will also need regular access to the Internet and a computer meeting our recommended minimum computer specification.

Terms & conditions for applicants and students

Information on financial support