Site • RSS • Apple PodcastsDescription (podcaster-provided):
Bioethics is the study of the moral implications of new and emerging medical technologies and looks to answer questions such as selling organs, euthanasia and whether should we clone people. The series consists of a series of interviews by leading bioethics academics and is aimed at individuals looking to explore often difficult and confusing questions surrounding medical ethics. The series lays out the issue in a clear and precise way and looks to show all sides of the debate.Themes and summary (AI-generated based on podcaster-provided show and episode descriptions):
➤ Bioethics debates • neuroscience, serotonin, moral decision-making • responsibility and mental disorder • organ sales and transplantation ethics • healthcare resource allocation • trust and informed consent • genetic enhancement, status quo bias, designer babies • end-of-life, euthanasia, moral status, embryos/abortionThis podcast features interview-based discussions with academic bioethicists about the moral questions raised by medicine, psychiatry, neuroscience, and emerging biotechnologies. Across the conversations, it examines how we should reason from scientific facts about human psychology and brain function to conclusions about what people ought to do, including whether biological factors such as neurochemistry can influence moral judgment and what that might imply about attempts to alter behavior.
A recurring theme is responsibility: how diagnoses and expanding knowledge of mental disorders and the brain affect blame, accountability, and the ways clinicians and society should respond to harmful actions. The podcast also explores ethical dilemmas at the edges of life and death, including autonomy, suicide and assisted dying, decision-making for incapacitated patients, and whether there is a morally significant difference between killing and letting die.
Several episodes focus on policy and social ethics in healthcare, such as how to allocate scarce medical resources and how to structure trust and consent between patients, doctors, and institutions. The series also addresses high-profile debates in applied ethics, including whether markets in human organs should be permitted and what considerations support or oppose commodifying body parts.
In addition, the podcast investigates the ethics of genetic and reproductive technologies—enhancement, intelligence-boosting interventions, and selecting traits in future children—along with psychological factors like status quo bias that may shape public intuitions. Underlying many discussions is the concept of moral status: who or what counts as a being with rights or protections, and how that question affects issues such as embryo research, abortion, and life-support decisions.
| Episodes: |
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Neuroscience Can Tell Us About Morality 2012-Feb-03 19 minutes |
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Brain Chemistry and Moral Decision-Making 2012-Jan-04 16 minutes |
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Responsibility 2011-Dec-01 16 minutes |
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Selling Organs 2011-Nov-01 18 minutes |
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Bio-Ethics Bites 2011-Oct-03 20 minutes |
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Trust 2011-Sep-01 18 minutes |
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Status Quo Bias 2011-Aug-01 19 minutes |
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Life and Death 2011-Jul-04 16 minutes |
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Moral Status 2011-May-31 18 minutes |
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Designer Babies 2011-May-31 21 minutes |