A bioethics course for biology and science education students

Integrating a Bioethics Course Into Undergraduate Biology Education

“…They could hardly be solved by applying conventional moral philosophy and ethical arguments. Faced with moral dilemmas, some have retreated to using 'natural' and 'unnatural' as meaning acceptable or unacceptable (7). However, in the early 21 st century, much of what is accepted as natural in developed societies is definitely not natural.…”

“…This applies to almost all medical interventions, many aspects of agriculture and to human interactions with the biosphere. The weakness of the dilemma 'natural versus unnatural' as a basis for ethical decision making, at least in the public domain, has been criticized by a number of scholars (7,8,24). Some of them have acknowledged that personal revulsion and in particularly reconsidering of underlying human values may be an important factor in determining an individual's response to biological advancements (7).…”

“…The weakness of the dilemma 'natural versus unnatural' as a basis for ethical decision making, at least in the public domain, has been criticized by a number of scholars (7,8,24). Some of them have acknowledged that personal revulsion and in particularly reconsidering of underlying human values may be an important factor in determining an individual's response to biological advancements (7). Nevertheless, in the recent years many authors highlighted that bioethics and especially some training in this scientific field could provide the framework or guidelines, both ethical and legal, to deal with controversial issues caused by developments of biology and biomedical science (3,4,12,39,42,48).…”

“…Today, a number of universities in the UK offer undergraduate courses in bioethics for biology and science education students (7,12,16,39,47). Some of these modules are established as a part of the core program for students taking the B.Sc.…”

“…Taking into account the growing significance of bioethics for the biosciences, it is not surprising that it has been included as a core or optional subject in the undergraduate biology and science education in many colleges and universities around the world. In the literature dedicated to teaching in bioethics there have already been presented many successful examples of courses at the undergraduate level both for bioscience student groups (7,15,18,25,38,39,43,47) and for cross disciplinary groups (3,49). In addition, there is also a large body of research set within the context of science education, which discusses the ethics of scientific investigations and the assertion that bioscience is not value-free (1,23).…”