Course Syllabus
Lecture 1 An Overview of the Techniques for Creating Humans
Lecture 2 When Does Life Begin? The Human Embryo
Lecture 3 What Sort of Children Shall We Have? The Science of Reproduction
Lecture 4 Cloning: I Want Them to Take After Me
Lecture 5 A Boy Please: Sex Selection
Lecture 6 Abortion?
Lecture 7 Who’s My Mother? Who’s My Father? Surrogacy
Lecture 8 A Sorting Vat for Babies: Screening
for Abnormalities
Lecture 9 Superboy and Wondergirl: Genetic Enhancement
Lecture 10 Spare-Part Children
Lecture 11 The Right to Reproduce
Lecture 12 Life-Boat Ethics: Population Control
Lecture 13 Hard Choices: Ethics in Intensive Care
Lecture 14 Science as a Father
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Human reproduction is about life and its perpetuation. If there is anything that we have to
take seriously from the moral point of view, then surely that is human life. We value life
because it is all that we have which is our own. We construct elaborate systems of belief
about it; we guard it through rules we have devised for it; it is everything to us. How we
begin human life, how we bring it into existence is a matter of the most profound importance.
In this course, we will discuss the various moral aspects of human reproduction from methods
of conception to methods of ending a pregnancy. We will discuss the moral, cultural, legal,
and political influences on reproduction as well as the scientific advances in reproductive
technology.
Hopefully at the end of this course we will not have arrived at answers to the various questions
raised, but will have provided a base for us to consider the issues at hand and a desire to
pursue more study in the important aspects of creating humans.
 Creating Humans: Ethical Questions Where Reproduction and Science Collide (Booklet)
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Professor
Professor Alexander McCall Smith
(The University of Edinburgh)
Alexander McCall Smith has written more than 50 books covering a wide range of topics directed at many different audiences. His works include Forensic Aspects of Sleep and The Criminal Law of Botswana. A professor of medical law at Edinburgh University, he was born in what is now Z...
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Course Forum
Course Final Exam
Philosophy
