Name:
Date:
"Calendar"
Assignment for Day 7
What do we want,
what do we value?
Readings—review again:
· Medical utopias: Ethical reflections about emerging medical technologies, by B. Gordijn, 2006.
· The Economist’s Survey of the Human Genome
Thinking assignment:
· Background: All these articles discuss the human aspirations that drive today’s new genetic and medical technologies.
· Task: Comb through these two articles to identify what those aims and aspirations seem to be. In the Economist, these driving aspirations may largely be implicit or taken-for-granted, that is, not explicitly pointed to.
o What are they?
o What patterns do you see? For example, to what extent do they represent “goods” for individuals vs. society as a whole? Global and vague (e.g., the “good of mankind”) vs. highly specific (e.g., cure cancer)?
o To what extent do you think they reflect the aims and desires of the average person? Come to think of it, how could you figure out what most people actually want and value in life?
Be prepared to discuss in class (no writing to be turned in).