020031 SE The Question Concerning Evil (2014S)

The seminar takes the American TV-Series Breaking Bad as a starting point in order to discuss the fundamental questions of ethics, law, and medicine. From an ethical perspective, the series running for five seasons asks (a) about the reasons of our action and their rationalizing justification, (b) about the extent of our responsibility, (c) about the relation between our individual values and the societal framework. From a legal perspective, Breaking Bad frames specific questions about information and consent in medical treatment, but it also asks questions about the operating mechanisms of the legal system as such (How to deal with drug trafficking? What is the role played by lawyers? How is police and justice linked? etc). From a medical perspective, questions arise about the doctor-patient communication and the organization of the medical system as such. Specific questions the seminar seeks to address are the following:
- Medical Ethics: Who decides about the treatment and how is the decision process framed?
- Ethics I: How does ethical-decision-making actually function (rational, emotional, etc)?
- Ethics II: When does responsibility start and what are we responsible for?
- Medicine I: How does medical communication take place (how is it depicted)?
- Medicine II: What sort of image of illness, pain, and disability is displayed?
- Medical Law: What image of information and consent of medical treatment is depicted?
- Law: How is the (American) legal system presented and how can we evaluate the legal system?
These questions will be discussed based on short film sequences and in confrontation with scientific texts on the subject (e.g. on the doctor-patient-relationship, on the concept of responsibility, etc).