300384 VO What is Life? (2013W)

This course is an introduction to conceptual and ethical issues in the life sciences, suitable for philosophy and for biology students, among others. The course is divided into four parts, each addressing a core conceptual issue in the life sciences and their ethical and social ramifications. We begin by investigating what is perhaps the most fundamental question in biology, namely ‘What is life and how did it originate?’ We will discuss controversies surrounding the origin of life, as well as attempts to define life and how these definitions impact on life and death decisions. We then proceed by investigating the kinds of explanations biologists provide. This second part of the course will cover mechanistic thinking in the life sciences, and the implications of current norms of mechanistic explanation for health care policy. In the third part of the course we will discuss various issues related to the genetic revolution, from debates surrounding the concept of the gene, to the ethics of genetic testing, gene therapy, and eugenics. A distinctive feature of living organisms is that they evolved. Consequently, the last part of the course covers the processes that shape evolution and the sometimes controversial application of the principles of evolution to understanding human behaviour.