BIOETICA CON LABORATORIO DI ETICA NELLA CITTADINANZA

The Bioethics course with Ethics in Citizenship workshop aims to provide students with knowledge, skills and competences relating to the fundamental aspects of ethical reflection. In particular, the Bioethics course focuses on the relationship between man and the environment and the ethical consequences of scientific development, and the Ethics in Citizenship workshop focuses on that part of public ethics which asks the question of what is the right action for citizens in the public arena.

Attendance at the course is strongly recommended, both because the lecturer's exposition of bioethics theories greatly facilitates the students' acquisition of the content and because the workshop focuses on the students' activities.

Shortcomings in the way bioethics is applied today. Theory and intuitive judgements in bioethics. Utilitarianism. The damage caused by bioethics. Man's domination of animals. The material and conceptual means by which humans have shaped the lives and bodies of animals. Animals as expendable beings and consumer objects. Religion and animals. Law and animals. Science and animals. The history of the progressive expansion of human power over living things. The genesis and development of the war that human beings have declared on other animals. The use against human beings of techniques already used against animals. The role of higher education in an increasingly multiple, interdependent and globalised world. The Aristotelian idea of citizenship. The Socratic critique. The Stoic ideal of cosmopolitanism. The relevance of the ancients. Classical models and an education adapted to modernity. The formation of world citizens. The critical examination of oneself and of reality. Overcoming barriers of nationality, gender and class. Cultivating humanity in all its forms. The exercise of imagination. The history of minorities. Non-western cultures. Studies on sexuality and gender differences.

1. Jonathan Baron, Contro la bioetica, Raffaello Cortina 2008, 306 pp.

2. Gianfranco Mormino - Raffaella Colombo, Dalla predazione al dominio. La guerra contro gli animali, Libreria Cortina 2017, 247 pp.

3. Martha C. Nussbaum, Coltivare l’umanità. I classici, il multiculturalismo, l’educazione contemporanea, Carocci 2006, 337 pp.