Bioethics

Offered by the School of Philosophy and Bioethics

Telephone: +61 3 9905 4277 (coursework), +61 3 9905 1519 (research)

Email: justin.oakley@arts.monash.edu.au(coursework), dirk.baltzly@arts.monash.edu.au (research)

The growth of scientific knowledge and technical ability in medicine, genetics and the biological sciences has led to a number of ethical dilemmas which perplex all of us, but especially those in the health care field. Does the fact that we can prolong the life of a patient in a permanent vegetative state mean that we should do so? Is destructive embryo experimentation justified by the prospect it offers of alleviating infertility? Should research designed to find ‘gay genes’ be conducted given that the results of such work might be used against homosexual people? Should we proceed with research trying to clone people? These and many other questions raise complex ethical and legal issues. The study, discussion and teaching of these issues has come to be known as bioethics – a field generally defined as covering the ethical issues raised by medicine, genetics and the biomedical sciences.

The Centre for Human Bioethics offers PhD and masters by research degrees. Academic strengths within the centre include ethical issues in patient care, especially involving autonomy and confidentiality and clinician accountability; the ethics of clinical trials; medical end-of-life decisions; new reproductive technologies; nursing ethics; surrogacy; disability and discrimination; the new genetics and ethics; moral psychology and moral development. The centre is also strong in ethical theory, especially virtue ethics and consequentialism, the relevance of emotions to ethics, partiality and impartiality in ethics, and feminist ethics. Applied ethics and moral philosophy has been identified as one of the research strengths of the faculty.

Master of Bioethics students who have completed at least one semester of the course are eligible to apply for an annual fellowship of $7000 to work during the Australian summer as an intern in the human genetics program at the World Health Organisation in Geneva. For more information, contact Dr Justin Oakley.

Relevant course groups

Doctor of Philosophy

Masters degree by research

Masters degree by coursework

Postgraduate Diploma in Arts (Research)

Graduate Diploma

Graduate Certificate

Previous page | Next page | Section contents | Title and contents