Name:
Date:
"Calendar"
Assignment for Day 6
The pursuit of
medical utopias
· Medical utopias: Ethical reflections about emerging medical technologies, by B. Gordijn, 2006.
o Chapter 2: Basic concepts (pp. 7-14)
o Chapter 3: Medical utopian thinking (pp. 15-38).
Writing assignment:
· Background: These readings place medical utopias in historical context, past and future, and describe the human enthusiasms that animate them. They also describe new “utopian” medical technologies currently at different stages of development, from first implementation, to clinical tryouts, and to still mostly just theoretical possibilities.
· Task: Look again at the article in the Economist. To what extent does it represent the sort of medical utopianism that your readings describe? How so—or not? Please refer to specific passages in the Economist article to support your points.
Also be prepared to:
· Specify a general topic for which you would like to be a “team leader” (genetic screening, forensic genetics, patenting genes and new forms of life, etc.). We will decide topics for remaining weeks.