Four Important Reasons to Teach Bioethics 1.Advance students’ science understanding. 2.Prepare students to make informed, thoughtful choices. 3.Promote respectful dialogue among people with diverse views. 4.Cultivate critical-reasoning skills.

 Ethics: seeks to determine what a person should do, or the best course of action, and provides reasons why. It also helps people decide how to behave and treat one another, and what kinds of communities would be good to live in.

 Bioethics: is a subfield of ethics applied to the life sciences. The discipline of bioethics helps us, as a society, make decisions about how best to use new scientific knowledge, how to make policy decisions regarding medicines or treatments, and how we should behave with each other. -lsp2drFo

 Ethical questions: ◦ Which actions should be permitted? Which action is best?  Bioethical questions: ◦ Should running with an artificial limb be permitted in the Olympics? How should we decide who receives an organ transplant?(List)

 Examples ◦ Should there be limits to how much people modify the natural world using technology? ◦ Should all students be required to have vaccinations? ◦ If you take a genetic test, who should know the results? ◦ Should doctors provide fata medicines to terminally ill patients who want to end their own lives? ◦ Should scientists clone pets or animals for food? ◦ Whom should scientists test new medicines on?

1. What is the ethical question? 2. What are the relevant facts? 3. Who or what could be affected by the way the four key questions, question gets resolved? 4. What are the relevant ethical considerations?

 Ethical  Scientific  Legal  Personal Preference  Some questions can fall into more than one category.

 Ethical: Bioethicists seek to understand what people should or ought to do. Example: Should people who donate a kidney be allowed to choose who should receive it?

 Scientific: Scientists seek to understand phenomena in the world– they want to describe what is. ◦ Example: How does the heart’s structure relate to its function?

 Legal: Within the bounds of the legal system ◦ Example: Does your state allow parents to opt out of vaccinating their children?

 Personal Preference: Personal preference, customs, habits (religious and cultural) Example: What kind of ice cream flavor is the best?

 Scientist seek to understand phenomena in the world—they answer scientific questions.  Bioethicists seek to understand what people should or ought to do—they answer ethical questions.  “Is” and “ought” summarize the main difference between scientists (describe and understand) and ethicists (determine what one ought to do)

 Ethical analyses should take the legal context and local laws into consideration, but something can be legal yet unethical. ◦ With respect to performance enhancers in sports, some interventions could be considered unethical even if they are not yet illegal and vice versa.  Ethical analyses should take customs into consideration, but something can be ethical and yet not in accord with personal preference and vice versa. ◦ not long ago in the United States, it was customary to discourage women from becoming business managers, but this was not ethical.

 Ethics helps people discuss issues that need to be decided by individuals as well as members of communities. ◦ Ethical questions on a societal level-medication and the policies on regulation how people are penalized for taking without prescription  When analyzing an issue identifying the ethical question that needs to be addressed is the first step.

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 Respect  Harms & Benefits  Fairness  Authenticity

 Not treating someone as a mere means to a goal or end.  Often a matter of not interfering with a person’s ability to make and carry out decisions  Supporting a person for the choice he or she makes.

 Minimizing harms while maximizing benefits.  Acting to lessen negative outcomes and promote positive outcomes.  “Do no harm”

 Sharing benefits, resources, risks, and costs equitably.  At times described as providing according to each person’s needs or according to each person’s merit or contribution.

 Achieving a goal in a manner consistent with what is valued about the performance and seen as true to its nature.  Certain ways of doing something that are considered essential to the action and therefore are highly valued.