Breakthroughs

Worth sticking around to watch:  HERE.

Time for a paradigm shift

Rethinking medicine:  HERE. 

Kasich signs Ohio law banning abortions for Down syndrome

Read about it HERE.  Of course, it would still be legal to decline life-saving treatment after birth...

Woman gives birth to baby frozen as embryo for 24 years

Technologically, amazing.  Ethically, complicated.    HERE.

Trump administration forbids CDC officials from using 7 words and phrases

Orwell knew us:  HERE.

Partial Reading Schedule (corrected)

Here is a reading list into Week 5.  I will update it soon.
Please NOTE:  on each date, the reading listed is assigned for the NEXT CLASS.
So if something is listed on a Wednesday, it is due the following Friday, etc.

Also, I will keep posting assignments on the blog.  But this is for those of you who want to get ahead.

Also, in each case, you are to summarize the reading.  That's not stated on the chart.

Also, remember, as per the syllabus, I could surprise you with a pop quiz on any reading.

Here's the LINK. 

Drug trial hints at possible progress against Huntington's

On the theme of:  the situation is always changing, HERE. 

Do Not Resuscitate

Your next tattoo?  HERE. 

Gaming the transplant system

Read all about it HERE.

First baby born from a transplanted uterus...

Wherever the heck we're headed...  HERE.

Assignment for Friday, Dec. 1

Two links here, to the same thing.  One for the audio and one for the transcript.  Read or listen to it.  It has nothing to do with what we've been talking about.  But it'll be obviously relevant to our semester.  No summary required--just pay attention and have thoughts.

AUDIO LINK

TRANSCRIPT LINK

Assignment for Wednesday, Nov. 29

Read and summarize the essay by Marquis beginning on page 49. 

Condom Failure Rates

I was thinking about how before (and even while) flying a plane, you have to go through all these checklists, like, reading them off a chart out loud and making sure.  You can make a checklist joke here, but the point is just that a refresher is always good when the topic is important--seriously.  So here's this, and simple Google searches can get more info an all of it.  HERE.

Assignment for Monday, Nov. 27

Read and summarize the article you will find at this link HERE. 

Assignment for Monday, Nov. 20

Read and summarize the next essay, by Thomson.

Assignment for Friday, Nov. 17

Read and summarize the next article, by Tooley.

Gene Editing

Inside the body this time!:  HERE.

On Snorting Caffeine

So, although I do want you to be awake for class, it turns out that some of you were quite right:  Snorting pure caffeine in anything but a truly miniscule amount could easily hurt or kill you.  I suppose that you know when I am joking about these things, but I'll take the trouble to make sure you know in this case.  I don't want you to die for many many years yet.    Just drink coffee.  A lot.

Head transplant

Or is it a body translplant?  Anyway, I think that there are plenty of ethical worries to have about the plan:  HERE.

Cool Activity

Not class-related, but maybe of interest:

This Sunday (11/19) Dr. Resinski is running a notebook-making workshop from 1:30-4:00 in SLTC 105.

Participants will learn a bit about ancient book-history and then use modern materials to make a notebook that replicates the form of a particular kind of codex form used in Egypt during the time of the Roman empire. All materials will be provided and no prior experience is necessary--but spots are limited, so if you'd like to participate, you'd need to reserve a slot in advance.

Just email her if you'd like to sign up.  You can reach her at Resinski@hendrix.edu

Assignment for Wednesday, Nov. 15

OK, as we get into this topic, we need to keep doing something that we've been doing really well so far:  talk with civility and respect.  People have lots of different ideas about these things, and they hold their beliefs strongly.  So let's tread carefully.

Read and summarize 15-22.

Assignment for Monday, Nov. 13

Let's read 436-441.  Take careful notes.  No summary required. 

Assignment for Friday, Nov. 10

This is a little different.  I'm going to link you to a particular search page on a site called "matching donors."  The site allows people who need organs to post requests so that people who might want to donate an organ can search through and pick to whom they'd like to donate.

This is private, not governmental, and it is not a waiting list.  A potential donor can directly donate to anyone profiled here, regardless of how long the recipient has been listed. 

What I'd like you to do is go through and read about thirty or so of these profiles.  You can jump around in the list, choose different seach parameters, etc.  (The "search our patient profiles" button is toward the upper left.) 

I want you to start a little list of features of these profiles that interest you.  What do recipients want you to know?  Do they include pictures?  Stories?  What else?  What do they have in common?  Make a list.  Bring it with you.

(Also, please remember, these people are hurting.  Some of the profiles might be quirky to you, but I want to maintain a very high level of respect as we discuss them.  No one wants to be in this situation.)

The link is HERE. 

Who pays for dialysis and kidney transplants?

Here's a good discussion--remember, only kidneys:  LINK.

Some updated numbers on kidneys

At the moment, the number of people on the waiting list in the US is about 80,000.

The average wait is over five years.

Something like 15-20 people die each day while waiting for a kidney.

The following web site has some prices and costs associated with black market organ sales.  Note the very big difference between what the buyer pays and what the seller receives:  LINK.

Assignment for Wednesday, Nov. 8

Read and summarize 425-433.

Note:  Sometimes my page numbers may not match up precisely with yours.  I'm using a Kindle edition, and I've noticed that it is not perfect with pagination.  Just thought I'd get that out there, with three quarters of the semester behind us...

On Surrogacy

Here's something new:  LINK.

More on organ markets

A link from Maren, about a guy from New Jersey:  HERE. 

Assignment for Monday, Nov. 6

Read and summarize 417-424.   That's two short articles.  You can summarize them on the same page.

I Swear I Wish Somebody Would Tell Me

The problem with kindness:  HERE.

Assignment for Friday, Nov. 3 --CORRECTION--

Read and summarize 141-144.  (This is a response to an article we skipped, but I think that the position being responded to here is clear enough.) 

Assignment for Wednesday, Nov. 1

Thinking about gender and human flourishing is not a digression for me, though I understand if it seems like one. 

There are many more traditional tie-ins that we could explore now:  the effects of the fact that most medical experiments are done on male bodies, the effects of the fact that most characterizations of illness (especially heart disease) are drawn from descriptions of male bodies, the ethics of surgically “creating” a male or female body when a child is born with “ambiguous” genital anatomy, and of course, the whole cluster of issues around how gender preferences play into uses of reproductive technology.  (We will read one article about that.)

But two things are on my mind.

1)  I want to not read for a little bit. 

2)  Gender is so pervasive that it is invisible.  

So here’s your assignment.  

a)  Find some friends of yours, of your own gender.  This needs collective input.  They don’t need to be other students in class.

b)  Discuss this topic in an organized way.  Question:  on a typical day, what _would I do differently_ if I were another gender?  So your job is to collect answers and make a list.  (Even small things, like grooming.)   It can be handwritten, but take it seriously.  At every moment, for every kind of thing that happens in a typical day, what would they be doing, or how would things _be happening_, differently from the way it all works now. 

c)  Bring this to class.  

(Note:  this can be an unexpectedly touchy subject, since the expenses of gender strike people very differently.  So try to make sure that your list is respectful and thoughtful.) 

New Gene Therapy Strategy for Deafness

Pretty much exaclty the sort of thing Chadwick and Levitt were foreseeing, back when they wrote the paper we read:  LINK.

Disability

Some great and relevant links, with thanks to Annie!


The history of disability:  LINK

Disability and The Simpsons:  LINK

"...ableism–the conscious and unconcious ways that people tend to discrimnate against disabled people."  LINK

Assignment for Mon., Oct 30

126-134.  Summarize it.  More practice in perspective taking. 

Developments in Gene Editing

Anyone really think that this will only ever be used to address disease???   HERE. 

Minority Representation in Medical Research

A troubling, but not surprising, problem.  We'll talk more about these things, but it is in the news now: HERE.

Assignment for Friday, Oct. 27

So on reflection, I realize that we really did hear a lot of voices in our conversation today.  Thank you for that.  Let's read the next (long-ish) essay.  No summary.  Because you've earned it.

Assingment for Wednesday, Oct. 25

Read 105-110.  I think that those are the pages.  It's just the next article after the one we just read.

I'm not going to assign a summary, because I am really pleased with how well we're doing. 

But please do read it and come ready to talk about it.  And I really like hearing the voices of the less-heard members of the class.  I'm not going to name names (Andy, Jordan, Daniel, Trey, Regan, Brianna, Christa...).  So let's keep it up. 

Uterine Transplant

First in the US.  Also, with animation, video, AND infographics:  HERE.

Assignment for Monday, Oct. 23

Read and summarize 91-99.

I bet you'll see why I trace all of these issues, too, to questions I want to ask about the impulse to have one's "own biological" children.

I also want to keep saying that my skepticism goes hand in hand with a genuine sensitivity to those who experience difficulty (or impossibility) in having children.  Their pain can be profound, and we should keep that in sight.

Assignment for Friday, Oct. 20

OK, read and summarize 86-90, by Parfit.  This is tricky, so don't be fooled by the short length.  Start early. 

CLASS CANCELED

No class on Monday, October 16.  We'll pick up again on Wednesday.   --C

Assignment for Monday, Oct. 16

Let's do a little thinking about the other end of life. 

No summaries.  But I'm feeling very quizzy, if you get my meaning.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-ethics-of-multiple-births/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natalie_Suleman

http://www.acog.org/Resources-And-Publications/Committee-Opinions/Committee-on-Ethics/Multifetal-Pregnancy-Reduction

AND: in our book, pages 71-73, by Pence

Assignment for Wednesday, Oct. 11

I want you to read some online stuff.

LINK1

LINK2

LINK3

LINK4  At this site, look around the links, watch the videos, etc.

No summaries.  But be ready to talk.

--C

Tired of Life

What do we think about a request for aid in dying if there's no illness at all???

Read about it HERE.

Assignment for Monday, Oct. 9

362-365.  Summary.  

Assignment for Friday, Oct. 6

3557-361.  Short, but rich.  Summarize this. 

Assignment for Wednesday, Oct. 4

One of philosophy's jobs is to ask if we can be better.  That is, it asks about how we live, our patterns.

People who do not want to ask those questions look for ways to evade them.  One of the most handy is to retreat to some scientific explanation of behavior.

And believe me, any behavior at all can be justified by some finding somewhere. 

Even a developmental necessity for Santa Claus! 

Philosophers are VERY well aware of the human tendency to avoid the truth.  No one needs social science to tell us that we are devoted to our illusions.

I believe that my own research (in our own class) shows that few of you would accept, as an excuse for your partner's cheating, a social-scientific justification. 

Even if social science (psychology?  neuroscience?  sociology?  sociobiology???) tells you that we are bound to cheat, you are likely to think that there's a moral issue, a betrayal, a dishonesty, a hurtful and selfish choice, etc. 
 
So my point is that a social scientific answer can't (easily) help with a moral phenomenon.  It takes courage to ask a challenging moral question without retreating to some comfortable generalization. 

But that's our job here, for about seven more weeks.

Read 353-356.  Short but grim.  I don't need a summary.  But I am likely to quiz you on it.

Assignment for Monday, October 2

I don't want to beat a dead horse, just let me briefly review what I was trying to get at today:

Some moral theories focus on consequences.  On those theories, what's right is what increases happiness and reduces suffering.  The actual acts involved have no inherent value.  So, again, lying could be morally right if it leads to more happiness.  Most justifications of voluntary euthanasia (active OR passive) rely on this idea:  It is right to end a life, by request, if ending it will head off great suffering.  These are "consequentialist theories."

Some moral theories hold that consequences are not the main thing about right and wrong.  They might hold that an act is right or wrong regardless of its consequences.  For example, they might suggest that lying is wrong because it is disrespectful or harms autonomy, even if it produces more happiness.  Likewise, they might suggest that ending a life intentionally is always wrong, even when it heads off great suffering.  These are "non-consequentialist theories."


It's not that simple, though.  A good reason to think that lying is wrong is that it will eventually lead to unhappiness. 

And some people think that allowing people to choose to end their own lives (or get help doing it) will lead to greater suffering, in general, because there may be a loss of trust in doctors, there may be mistakes in who wants to die, there may be a lowered respect for life, and so on.

So you can usually have a good consequentialist reason to tell the truth and to refrain from killing. 

And again, I only bring this up because it seems like a lot of the arguments we have in favor of treating killing and letting die as morally equal are consequentialist.  It's not that non-consequentialists don't care about suffering--of course they do.  They just don't think that morality's main goal is to reduce it.

Now then, for Monday, read and summarize 261-269.  I'll have an updated reading schedule soon.

No Comment

LINK

Vegetative States, Then and Now

Annie offers us this link about new ways of approaching vegetative states.  As these sorts of things become more common, questions about equating loss of consciousness with death start to get fuzzy.

Give it a look.  Comments?  LINK.

Assignment for Friday, Sept. 29

You will notice that this is the SAME as what I wrote for the second part of Wednesday's assignment.
But we don't have class on Wednesday, so the assignment is for FRIDAY.



(You know, here's another way to test intentions.  I don't claim that it holds for every case.  Suppose that You were near the end of a terminal illness, and a doctor had agreed to help you end your life on his next visit.  Then suppose that she shows up at the next visit to find that you had recovered.  I reckon that if you said, oh well, I guess we still have to end my life, since we agreed to it, the doctor might well say:  I agreed to help on the condition that you were already close to death--I had no wish to help you die outside of those circumstances!)

Anyway, that's just me trying to think through whether or not Rachels is right about euthanasia being about the best way to end a life, given that ending it is judged to be the right thing to do.

For FRIDAY, read and summarize:  257-260

Short and complicated.

Assignment for Wednesday, Sept. 27 (Part 2)

Remembering that class is cancelled on Wednesday...so this assignment is FOR FRIDAY.

(You know, here's another way to test intentions.  I don't claim that it holds for every case.  Suppose that You were near the end of a terminal illness, and a doctor had agreed to help you end your life on his next visit.  Then suppose that she shows up at the next visit to find that you had recovered.  I reckon that if you said, oh well, I guess we still have to end my life, since we agreed to it, the doctor might well say:  I agreed to help on the condition that you were already close to death--I had no wish to help you die outside of those circumstances!)

Anyway, that's just me trying to think through whether or not Rachels is right about euthanasia being about the best way to end a life, given that ending it is judged to be the right thing to do.

For FRIDAY, read and summarize:  257-260

Short and complicated.

Assignment for Wednesday, Sept. 27 (Part 1)

Friends, Due to circumstances beyond my control, I need to cancel class on Wednesday.  Check back here soon, and I'll give you the assignment for Friday. 

Assignment for Monday, September 25

I was going to link you to some pictures of crocodiles eating other large animals.  But the humor of it just died as I became more and more horrified.  So I won't share that with you. 

But for Monday, read and summarize:  248-256.

I was thinking about the idea that we're grow more inclined to call you a cause of an event as the effort required to stop it shrinks.  What if I could save the drowning child merely by saying "unto the whole person"?   Still...I don't think you're right to think that I murdered the child if I don't say it. 

Now.  What if I could save the child by merely continuing to breathe normally--but instead, I knowingly hold my breath for a few seconds.  In that case, I go out of my way, slightly, to change my behavior.  I had nothing to do with the child's plight--maybe that was an accident--but I'm still showing, if not a plan to end his life, at least a willingness to help end it. 

I have no idea if "go out of my way slightly" can really bear that much moral importance.  But that's how it seems to me at the moment.  We'll talk.

A Controversial Right to Die Claim

Sai sent me this link, and it is really interesting and relevant.  Take a look:  HERE. 

Assignment for Friday, Sept. 22

Read and summarize 241-247.  And watch the page numbers.

And if you didn't get to 239 last time, read that, too.  It's well-written and important.

Assignment for Wednesday, Sept. 20

225-239.  Read and summarize.  And yes, as...Christa? asked, that is two readings, but the second one is short.  You can summarize both on one page.

Designer Babies

Is it a big deal?  Look HERE.  And relatedly:  HERE. 

Animal Testing Pros and Cons

Instead of linking you to some accounts of the horrors of animal treatment in our culture, I will link you instead to this quick list of pro and con arguments.  It is not exhaustive, but it provides a good map.  Check it out.  HERE.  

I hope that you WILL find out, on your own, at least some details about how animals are actually treated for food and medicine and clothing.  If you are going to use these products, you ought to know what they involve.  Informed consent...

Assignment for Monday, Sept. 18

Read and summarize 540-550.  This is actually an exchange with several short texts.  Just summarize them briefly all on one document. 

Assignment for Friday, September 15

Read and summarize 530-539.  This will be a change of pace in some ways.  Don't forget about the informed consent/autonomy stuff, though.  It will come back to us.

Assignment for Wednesday, Sept. 13

Read and summarize 683-692.  That'll toss a wrench into the works...

Assignment for Mon., Sept. 11

OK, we’re going off-road.  I want to try to weigh Savulescu’s very stringent criteria for autonomy against a famous case.  

(This is something you should get to soon.)

So first, read THIS.

 

Then THIS. 

Then re-read Savalescu (or parts of it).

And then write a two-page (max) thing.  

One page is how Savalescu would handle Cowart’s case—this is to show me that you get Savalescu.  

Then the second page is about whether or not you’d handle (or think about) Cowart’s case in the same way (as Savalescu).  And why.  

So that’s two pages MAX.  Single or double spaced—I never care about that, I care about number of pages MAX.  

 

Due Monday.  In class.  No lateness accepted.

Looking forward to our discussion.

—Chris

PS:  There are also some good videos (on YouTube) of Dax Cowart talking about his case, and you are free to consult those to get a fuller idea of his stance on things.

Online Reviews of Doctors... Good Idea or Bad Idea

Here's one doctor's view.  What do you think???

LINK

Assignment for Friday, Sept. 8

Read and summarize:   665-682

(Not a breeze, so start early.)

Law, Medicine, Ethics, and Getting Famous

So this happened:  LINK.

Assignment for Wednesday, Sept. 6

(Note, I've corrected the partial reading list, posted at the head of these posts.  Thanks to Jalin.)

For Wednesday, read and summarize 654-664. 

Truth Telling and Cultural Differences

Check out this episode of This American Life.   I am linking you to the text HERE.   If you prefer to listen, the audio is HERE. 

Assignment for Friday, Sept., 1

Read and summarize 642-653.  You are now on notice about the possibility of quizzes.

Assignment for Wed., Aug. 30

Read and summarize 635-641, Beauchamp. 

Circumcision and Ethics in Denmark

Read about it HERE.    Comments?

Assignment for Monday, Aug. 28

Read the next article and produce a summary and bring it to class.  No excuses. 
(That would be pages 621-627, by Roger Higgs.)

(If you already did this, just skim the article again, so you're fresh for our discussion.)

Assignment for Friday, Aug. 25

I won't always post assignments here.  Mostly I post items for comment and discussion.  So please do browse through prior posts, make comments, etc.  Sign your posts, too, please.  In order to keep the discussion Hendrix-based, I delete comments that are unfamiliar or unsigned.

Now then, for Friday:

1)  Read 615-621  (this is corrected from what I wrote here earlier.  see my email to you.)

2)  Summarize it.

(A summary is NO MORE than one page long.  It is printed out.  It is single spaced.  It captures the main point and argument of the reading.  Do this as _clearly_ as you can.)

3)  Plan for the printer to fail.  It will.  And I will not accept a late summary.  Your only option is to get it done early, so that you can deal with the printer problem and still make it to class with the summary.

4)  You'll get a syllabus soon.  But #3 is important in this way:  missed assignments (even if it was the damned printer's fault) cost you points off your FINAL grade.  You have 100 points right now.   Don't lose any.  More on that soon.

Vaginal Seeding

A good example of an approach based on a theory that sounds perfectly sensible.  But what makes something perfectly sensible?  Read about it HERE.

Trade in Human Organs

Watch the video.  Disturbing.  Here. 

Surrogacy is Complicated

Like in this case:  HERE. 

Paying for your kidney transplant

Your tax dollars at work:  HERE.

Non-voluntary Euthanasia?

Just a very sad and difficult situation.  Note that the court decided against the parents.  What seems to be its reasoning for over-ruling their wishes?  HERE.

Genetic Tests For Sale, No Doctor Required

Empowering or misleading?  Look HERE.

Three Genetic Parents

Mundane or Monstrous?  Look Here.

More Doubts About Animal Testing

Read or listen HERE.

Cultural DIfferences in Telling the Truth

Listen to this story about a Chinese woman's dire diagnosis:  HERE.

E&M MOVIES and RANDOM CULTURAL ICONS YOU SHOULD KNOW

I'll just keep adding to this list as we think of more.  Get started.


21.  I Heart Huckabees TRAILER

20.  Hamlet, Graveyard scene.  Erika.  HERE.

19. Seeking a Friend for the End of the World TRAILER

18.  The Fault in Our Stars  TRAILER

17.  Bladerunner  TRAILER

16.  50/50  TRAILER

15.  Stranger Than Fiction  TRAILER   (Go watch this.)

14.  Million Dollar Baby  TRAILER

13.  Whose Life is it Anyway?  TRAILER

12.  Star Wars.  Dasha.   TRAILER

11.  Wit  TRAILER

10.  You should know who this is.  And WHERE she is.  HERE

9.  Wikipedia entry on Dr. Kevorkian    HERE
Interview with Dr. Kevorkian.  From a while ago...  VIDEO

8.  Matrix  TRAILER

7.  The Sea Inside  TRAILER

6.  Patch Adams  TRAILER

5.  The Diving Bell and the Butterfly  TRAILER

4.  Weekend at Bernie's  TRAILER

3.  Johnny Got His Gun  TRAILER

2. The Desolation of Smaug  VIDEO

1.  Leeroy Jenkins.  Not a movie.  But an important cultural icon you should know.  Just watch it.
VIDEO

New Plan

HERE.

Bionic Limbs

On the one hand, I don't feel like I have the right to tell someone to stay.  But I think I would try to make sure that they understood the rate of change.  Maybe it wouldn't matter.  Maybe it would.

Pop into this in a few places:  HERE. 

Embryo Riddles!

How long should they be allowed to grow...?   Read about it HERE.

Clinical Trials Evolve

What if Patients Have a Voice?   Read about it:  HERE.

New Developments in Abortion Law

This is an interesting and controversial development in Oklahoma:  HERE. 

(I'll just note that the lawmaker quoted is giving a particular reading (without mentioning that) of a famous argument by a philosopher named Judith Jarvis Thomson.  You'll see that name again.)

The Immortal Life

Of Henrietta Lacks.  A bestselling book about a real bioethics drama, now headed your way as an HBO Series.  Read about it HERE.

Burgers

But not the meat kind:  HERE

Genetic "Editing" Might Be OK

Coming soon to a lab near you.  This is a big deal.   Listen HERE.

Grosse Point Blank

Go. See. This. Movie. 

CLIP

Chimeras.

And why were we doing that again?   HERE.

Can you imagine being "Locked-In"?

Amazing development:  HERE.

We're Friends. Also, you want an A.

So help me out?   HERE.

Supreme Court Nominee on Assisted Suicide

Neil Gorsuch is in the news as President Trump's nominee to fill the vacancy on the US Supreme Court.  It is interesting to note that Gorsuch has written a well-regarded book on assisted suicide.  A quick overview:  HERE.

NOT OK

I find this very disturbing:  HERE

Inspiring

Read it:  HERE

Kidnapped for Organs

Like this:  HERE

How do You Want to Die?

Read about one woman's choice:  HERE.