Bioethics
Faculty
Program Director: Alessandro Rovati, Associate Professor
Program Mission
Bioethics is an emerging, interdisciplinary field that studies what is good and bad (“ethics”) for living things (“bio”), with a focus on the relationship between human persons and developments in medicine and science. As an interdisciplinary field, bioethics considers how fields including philosophy, theology, medicine, law, and social sciences together help to answer questions about what is authentically good for human persons and about what policies best support the good for persons. As an emerging field, there is growing recognition of the need for bioethical expertise in a variety of workplaces, Catholic and secular alike, including in health care and academia. At the same time, the topics that bioethics addresses include some of the most contentious questions of today: “Is [abortion/euthanasia/transgender surgery/etc.] morally permissible?” “Is it medical care?” “Should it be legal?” While the contentiousness of the questions indicates their importance, careful answers and respectful and fruitful dialogue on these questions sometimes seem rare.
The minor is inspired by Ex Corde Ecclesiae’s special call for Catholic universities to “respond to the problems and needs of the age” (no. 31). The Catholic tradition has long considered questions of bioethics, and has a wealth of deep, coherent, and nuanced Magisterial teaching as well as other philosophical and theological reflection to offer. The minor familiarizes students with this rich tradition to prepare them to serve the Church. Given the growing recognition of the need for bioethics expertise, and the centrality of bioethics in upholding the dignity of human persons, the minor will be of great value to students who plan to pursue graduate studies and/or careers in bioethics, philosophy, theology, health care, scientific research, education, ministry work, or journalism, but also any students who have an interest in bioethics or the Catholic moral tradition, and students who may participate in health care decisions (theirs or others’) at any point in their lives. Careers in bioethics include academia, public policy work, and hospital- or hospital system-based clinical ethics work. The minor is open to students in any major, Catholics and non-Catholics alike
Program Goals
Students in the minor will receive a solid foundation in the Church’s bioethical teachings, principles, and reasoning, and how to apply and defend those teachings in the sometimes complicated and confusing encounters of human life. Through real-life case studies that involve consideration of not just theological principles, but medical information, legal realities, and other data as well, students will see the mutual enrichment of the disciplines urged by Ex Corde Ecclesiae at a practical level. Such theoretical and practical training will take place in conversation with secular bioethics. Encouraged by the vision that Ex Corde Ecclesiae sets forth for the Catholic university’s engagement with culture, students will be immersed in controversial questions of bioethics, consider convergence and divergence between Catholic and secular perspectives, and learn to engage in fruitful and charitable dialogue with others.