The Squire Family Foundation has inaugurated a new project, Student Voices and its companion blog, The Philosophical Student. Student Voices provides young philosophers with the opportunity to express themselves and to communicate with one another across the United States and around the world.
This fall, an area of the blog is devoted to discussions arising in Craig Merow's bioethics course taught at the Germantown Academy in Ft. Washington, PA. Prompts for new discussions will be posted monthly.
The Ethics of Cognitive Enhancement
Our society values achievement. Our employers extol the virtue of hard work, our professors encourage us to study harder, our coaches expect 110%, and the US Army attracts new recruits with the slogan “Be all you can be!” In the pursuit of excellence, we hire tutors and athletic trainers; we consult psychologists, dieticians, and personal finance consultants; we take piano lessons and enroll in SAT prep classes. And, some of us take drugs.
When baseball players turn to anabolic steroids to be all that they can be, we are appalled. We are also concerned when we read reports of college students using stimulants, such as Ritalin, to help them prepare for exams. What makes the pharmaceutical road to success morally suspect? Is there a difference between the use of drugs in athletics and in academics? Can we control the use of stimulants by college students? Should we?
» Click here to view the original assignment.
Waiting for a Transplant
Over 80,000 US patients are currently on the waiting list for a kidney transplant. It takes between one and six years to move to the top of the list and get a chance for life with a new organ. Thousands will die waiting. The scarcity of transplantable kidneys forces health care providers to make difficult life-and-death decisions. Who should get the next available kidney?
Liver Transplants for Alcoholics?
The Rule of Rescue and Organ Transplants
» Click here to view the original assignment.
End-of-Life Decisions
The following essays, written by students at Germantown Academy, address issues concerning the end of life. Annie Wallentine, Stephanie Seybert, and Jackie Goldenberg discuss physician-assisted suicide, while Victoria Edwards explores the morality of withholding treatment for infants with severe congenital defects.
We hope you find the student essays provocative and we welcome your comments. Do you agree with the arguments presented? If so, what points do you find compelling? Can you add further support for an author's position? If you disagree with an author, tell us where his/her argument fails. Suggest an alternative position and make a case for it. Try to keep your comments short (<300 words) and focused on one or two points. If you have more to say on an issue, consider submitting an essay of 500-750 words to Craig.Merow@germantownacademy.org as a Microsoft Word document for possible posting. Please join the conversation!
The Risk of Coercion in Physician Assisted Suicide
» Click here to view the original assignment.
Genetically Modified Foods
These four essays, written by students in my bioethics course at Germantown Academy, represent a range of responses to the question about genetically modified food. All four philosophers chose a utilitarian approach. Mr. Olitsky argues for analyzing GMO issues on a case-by-case basis. Ms. Goldberg and Ms. Wallentine do precisely what Mr. Olitsky recommends although they take opposite positions on the particular GMOs considered. Ms. Seybert's essay addresses a serious and very immediate concern with the GMOs currently in use.
We hope you find the student essays provocative and we welcome your comments. Do you agree with the arguments presented? If so, what points do you find compelling? Can you add further support for an author's position? If you disagree with an author, tell us where his/her argument fails. Suggest an alternative position and make a case for it. Try to keep your comments short (<300 words) and focused on one or two points. If you have more to say on an issue, consider submitting an essay of 500-750 words to Craig.Merow@germantownacademy.org as a Microsoft Word document for possible posting. Please join the conversation!
The Advantages of the Enviropig
Discussing Genetically Modified Organisms
» Click here to view the original assignment.
The essays listed below discuss how studying bioethics singularly enriched the lives of two students at Germantown Academy (Ft. Washington, PA), changing how they thought about philosophy – and themselves.
Critical Thinking in the Secondary Curriculum
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