Philosophy 380 S

                                                            Global Bioethics

                                                            Winter 2006

 

 

Mon: Victoria 323                                                                                            Professor Gopal Sreenivasan

Wed:  Alumni Hall 400                                                                                     215 Huron Street, Room 921

1:30-3:00                                                                                                         (416) 978-2824

                                                                                                                    gopal.sreenivasan@utoronto.ca

 

Assignments

 

There will be three examinations in this course.  There will be no required essays.

 

Two in class examinations will be worth 25 percent each; and a final examination will be worth 50 percent of the final grade.

 

There will be an optional essay towards the end of term.  If you write an essay, it will be worth 17 percent of your final grade

and the weight of your final examination will drop from 50 to 33 percent.  Not everyone will be allowed to exercise the essay option.

 

 

Reading Schedule

 

A course reader is available from the University Bookstore; it contains the *-ed readings.

 

 

January 9          Introduction.

Jan 11              Singer, “Famine, Affluence, and Morality,”  Philosophy and Public Affairs 1 (1972), pp. 229-243.

Jan 16              Miller, “Beneficence, Duty, and Distance,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 32 (2004), pp. 357-383.

Jan 18              Hardin, “Living on a Lifeboat,” Bioscience (1974), pp. 36-47;

                        Rosenfield and Schwartz, “Population and Development -- Shifting Paradigms, Setting Goals,”

                                    N. Engl. J. Medicine 352 (2005): 647-9.

Jan 23              Sen, “Fertility and Coercion,” University of Chicago Law Review 63 (1996), pp. 1035-1061.

Jan 25              Pogge, “Eradicating Systematic Poverty: Brief for a Global Resources Dividend,” 

                                    Journal of Human Development 2 (2001), pp. 59-77.           

Jan 30              Sreenivasan, “International Justice and Health:  A Proposal,”  Ethics and International Affairs 16 (2002),

                                    pp. 81-90;

                        Sreenivasan, “Health and justice in our non-ideal world,” Politics, Philosophy and Economics 6 (2007): 218-36.

February 2       *Shue, Basic Rights, second ed. (Princeton, 1996), ch. 1.       

Feb 6               *Rachels, “The challenge of cultural relativism,” Elements of Moral Philosophy, 4th ed. (2003), ch. 2;

                        *Williams, Morality (Harper and Row, 1972), pp. 20-25.

Feb 8               No class.

Feb 13             Kausikan, “Asia’s Different Standard,” Foreign Policy 92 (1993), pp. 24-41;

                        Sen, “Human Rights and Asian Values,”  Morgenthau Lecture, 1997.

Feb 15             First in class examination.

 

Feb 20             Reading week.

 

Feb 27             Taylor, “Conditions of an Unforced Consensus on Human Rights,” in J. Bauer and D.A. Bell (eds.)

                                     The East Asian Challenge for Human Rights (Cambridge, 1999), ch. 5.

March 1           *Chan, “A Confucian Perspective on Human Rights for Contemporary China,” in Bauer and Bell (eds.)

                                     The East Asian Challenge for Human Rights (Cambridge, 1999), ch. 9.

March 6           The Body Hunters. Washington Post, December 17-22, 2000.

                        Article 1.  Article 2.  Article 3.  Article 4.  Article 5.  Article 6.

March 8           Emanuel et al., “What Makes Clinical Research in Developing Countries Ethical?,” J. Infectious Diseases

                                    189 (2004): 930-37.

March 13         *Levine, “Informed consent: some challenges to the universal validity of the Western model,”

                                    Law Medicine and Health Care 19 (1991): 207-213;

                        *Ijsselmuiden and Faden, “Research and informed consent in Africa – another look,”

                                    N. Engl. J. Medicine 326 (1992): 830-834;

                        Gostin, “Informed Consent, Cultural Sensitivity, and Respect for Persons,” Journal of the American Medical

                                    Association 274 (1995):  844-45.

March 15         *Love and Fost, “Ethical and Regulatory Challenges in a Randomized Controlled Trial of Adjuvant Treatment

                                    for Breast Cancer in Vietnam,” Journal of Investigative Medicine 45 (1997):  423-431.

March 20         *Ekunwe and Kessel, “Informed Consent in the Developing World,”  Hastings Center Report 14(3)

                                    (1984): 22-4;

                        Préziosi et al., “Practical Experiences in Obtaining Informed Consent for a Vaccine Trial in Rural Africa,”

                                    N. Engl. J. Medicine 336 (1997): 370-73;

                        Lynoe et al., “Obtaining Informed Consent in Bangladesh,” N. Engl. J. Medicine 344 (2001): 460-61;

                        Fitzgerald et al., “Comprehension during informed consent in a less-developed country,” Lancet 360 (2002):

                                    1301-02.

March 22         Angell, “The Ethics of Clinical Research in the Third World,” N. Engl. J.  Medicine 337 (1997): 847-49;

Lurie and Wolfe, “Unethical Trials of Interventions to Reduce Perinatal Transmission of the HIV in Developing

            Countries,” N. Engl. J. Medicine 337 (1997): 853-856.                      

March 27         Second in class examination.

March 29         Crouch and Arras, “AZT Trials and Tribulations,” Hastings Center Report 28 (1998): 26-34.

April 3              Hawkins, “Justice and Placebo Controls,” Social Theory and Practice 32 (2006): 467-96.

April 5              No class.

April 10            Wertheimer, “Exploitation,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy;

                        Glantz et al., “Research in Developing Countries:  Taking ‘Benefit’ Seriously,” Hastings Center Report 28

                                    (1998): 38-42;

                        Shapiro and Meslin, “Ethical Issues in the Design and Conduct of Clinical Trials in Developing Countries,”

                                     N. Engl. J. Medicine 345 (2001): 139-142.

April 12            El Setouhy et al., “Moral standards for research in developing countries: from ‘reasonable availability’ to

                                    ‘fair benefits’,” Hastings Center Report 34 (2004):  17-28;

Arras, “Fair Benefits in International Medical Research,” Hastings Center Report 34 (2004):  3.

 

End of lectures.

 

 

 

 

January 9, 2006