| These lectures address topics within bioethics and the medical humanities. Speakers are MH&B faculty or special guests we've invited to present. The lectures run every Thursday from noon to 12:45pm in the Searle Seminar Room in the Lurie building, during The Graduate School's Fall, Winter, and Spring quarters. Due to public interest, we've made these lectures open to all, inside and outside the Northwestern community. Please feel free to bring a lunch. |
. | | James Lindemann Nelson, PhD
Professor of Philosophy
Faculty Associate
Center for Ethics and Humanities in the Life Sciences
Michigan State University
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Thursday, April 23, 2009 Some philosophers have advanced arguments about key bioethical issues—e. g., abortion, assisted suicide, and organ transplantion—that rest on cases that, to put it mildly, one would be unlikely to encounter in real life: children drowning, either in shallow ponds with a potential rescuer to hand or in tubs watched by delighted evil uncles, trolley cars racing toward five innocents tied to one track who can only be save by diverting the trolley on to a track populated with one innocent, etc. This talk will discuss whether, and under what conditions, such thought experiments can help our reflections about practice and policy.
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