Philosophy 3375

Topics in Moral Philosophy:

Procreation and Parenthood

Fall 2011

Jean Kazez

TuTh 12:30 – 1:50, Hyer 111

jkazez@smu.edu

Class blog: papsmu.blogspot.com

Office hours by appointment (Hyer 210)

Course Description This course will explore the ethics of reproduction and parenting:  Is there a duty to have children? Not to have children?  Is it wrong to reproduce through cloning? With the assistance of surrogate mothers and donated eggs?  Should we avoid having children with disabilities?  Should we use genetic screening or genetic engineering to have the “best” kids we possibly can?  Is gender selection ethical? What are the duties of parents to their children? What are the rights of children?  How much autonomy are children entitled to?  What are their duties to their parents? We’ll explore these and many other questions.

Course Goals (1) Students will build a foundation for greater reflectiveness about procreation and parenthood. (2) Students will work on becoming better critical thinkers, writers and debaters by reading complex and challenging philosophy articles analytically; writing clear and succinct summaries of arguments; writing incisive rebuttals of arguments; engaging in constructive oral debate; and connecting abstruse philosophical problems with real life situations, as depicted in film and journalism.

Class Blog Please immediately visit papsmu.blogspot.com and make yourself a subscriber. That way you will receive email updates whenever new material appears at the blog. That will be important, since homework assignments, announcements, and other important class material will be there.

Requirements

Paper I – 20% [papers will be about 5 pages each]

Paper II – 20%

Paper III – 20%

One team debate – 10%

Homework – 10 assignments – 30% [1-2 pages each]

Debates We will have five structured debates, with teams of 4 in charge of each debate. Dates are on the course schedule. You’ll sign up for the debate of your choice at the beginning of the semester. All team members will receive the same grade. If you wind up being ill, so that you can’t contribute your fair share to your team, you should let me know as soon as possible, and you will be shifted to the next debate.

Homework

1. The point of homework will be to help you read the more difficult readings analytically; and to ensure that you come to class with ideas about the required readings and/or movies.

2. Each assignment will be 1-2 typed pages.

3. All the homework assignments will be at the class blog; they will be there a minimum of 48 hours before they’re due.

4. I will assign homework roughly once a week. Some of these assignments will be mandatory, while others will be optional.

5. You must turn in a total of 10 assignments—all the mandatory assignments, plus enough of the others to add up to 10.

6. If you do more than 10 assignments, you’ll receive your top 10 grades.

7. Homework must be turned in at the very beginning of class. Otherwise, no credit. Exception below.

8. In case of documented illness or extracurricular activity, you can email me homework, but must do so before the next class meeting.

Attendance Attendance is required. Try not to miss any classes, as you will do worse on papers, homework, debates, etc., and contribute nothing to class discussion. You have a budget of 4 absences to use as you please. I do not need to see excuses if you are within your budget. If you exceed 4 absences, we will meet and discuss the situation. If you used up your budget due to chronic illness (be prepared to present documentation at that point) I will increase it. Otherwise, each additional absence will be penalized by a one point reduction in your final course grade.

Documentation Due dates cannot be changed except for reasons of illness, participation in official SMU athletic events, and similar circumstances. Be prepared to document excuses.

Extracurricular Activities “Students participating in an officially sanctioned, scheduled university extracurricular activity should be given the opportunity to make up class assignments or other graded assignments missed as a result of their participation. It is the responsibility of the student to make arrangements with the instructor prior to any missed scheduled examination or other missed assignment for making up the work.”

Disability accommodations “Students needing academic accommodations for a disability must first be registered with Disability Accommodations & Success Strategies (DASS) to verify the disability and to establish eligibility for accommodations. Students may call 214-768-1470 or visit www.smu.edu/alec/dass.asp to begin the process. Once registered, students should then schedule an appointment with the professor to make appropriate arrangements.”

Religious Observance “Religiously observant students wishing to be absent on holidays that require missing class should notify their professors in writing at the beginning of the semester, and should discuss with them, in advance, acceptable ways of making up any work missed because of the absence.”  (University Policy No. 1.9.).

Grades 90-100: Very accurate, very insightful, relatively minor flaws. 80-89: Some very good work, but also some significant gaps. 70-79: You've learned something, but missed many important things as well. 60-69: You’ve mastered a small amount of the material. 50-59: No mastery. 0-49: Nothing turned in, no effort at all, plagiarism, etc.

Honor Code Violation of SMU's honor code will not be tolerated. Every piece of work you turn in must be entirely your own. Writing a paper means both expressing your own thoughts, and expressing them in your own words. You may not copy passages from our texts, from any other texts, or from the internet, even if the passages are brief. No one else may write a paper for you, whether in whole or in part. In a typical case (for example, a student turns in a paper mostly cut-and- pasted from several web sites), the penalty for violating the honor code will be an "F" in the course. On top of this grade penalty, the case may be presented to the honor council, which may decide to take further disciplinary action, such as suspension or dismissal from the university.

Texts

Singer and Kuhse, Bioethics

Glover, Choosing Children

Sandel, The Case against Perfection

Readings at Blackboard

Readings at blog – papsmu.blogspot.com

It’s advisable to print out all the articles at Blackboard, plus those at the blog by philosophers. Being able to annotate your copy is an important aid to comprehension. There is no need to print out all the journalistic articles at the blog.

Schedule

	TUESDAY	THURSDAY
Aug 23, 25	Ethics toolkit	Future People Puzzles Kavka, “The paradox of future individuals” (93-103) – at Blackboard
Aug 30, Sept 1	Future People Puzzles Kavka, “The paradox of future individuals” (103-112) – at Blackboard Movie: Never Let Me Go OR The Island	Anti-Natalism Benatar, “Why it is better never to come into existence” – at Blackboard
Sept 6, 8	Pro-Natalism Smilansky, “Is there a moral obligation to have children?” – at Blackboard	Why Have Children? Kazez, “Parenthood and meaning” ; Lyubomirsky, “Why kids don’t make us happy” ; Caplan, “The breeders’ cup” - all 3 readings at blog
Sept 13, 15	Who Should Reproduce? Muller-Hill, “Lessons from a dark and distant past” – in Bioethics (ch. 22) LaFolette, “Licensing parents” – at blog DEBATE 1	Abortion – Against Finnis, “Abortion and health care ethics” – in Bioethics (ch. 1) Movie: Juno
Sept 20, 22	Abortion – In Defense Thomson, “A defense of abortion” – in Bioethics (ch. 3)	Choosing Offspring by Aborting Savulescu, “Sex selection” – in Bioethics (ch. 14); Padawer, “The two-minus-one pregnancy” – at blog DEBATE 2
Sept 27, 29	High Tech Reproduction Robertson, “Reproductive rights and reproductive technology in 2030”; Kass, “The wisdom of repugnance” – both readings at blog	PAPER 1 DUE no readings

Oct 4, 6	Cloning Tooley, “The moral status of the cloning of humans” – in Bioethics (ch. 17)	Surrogate motherhood Purdy “Surrogate mothering”; Dodds & Jones, “ A response to Purdy” – both in Bioethics (ch. 7-8) Therstrom, “Meet the Twibbles” – at blog
Oct 11, 13	Fall Break	Disabilities Glover, Choosing Children, ch. 1 Asch, “Prenatal diagnosis ...” – in Bioethics (ch. 12)
Oct 18, 20	Preventing Disabilities Glover, Choosing Children, ch. 2 Dominus, “Could conjoined twins share a mind?” – at blog DEBATE 3	The Right to An Open Future Davis, “Genetic dilemmas ...” – in Bioethics (ch. 24)
Oct 25, 27	Designer Babies Sandel, The Case Against Perfection (ch. 1-3) Movie: Gattaca	Designer Babies Sandel, The Case Against Perfection (ch. 4-5) Glover, Choosing Children, ch. 3 PAPER 2 DUE
Nov 1, 3	Childhood Slote, “Goods and lives” – at Blackboard Chua, “Why Chinese mothers are superior” – at blog	Children’s Rights, Parents’ Rights Griffin, “Do children have rights?” – at Blackboard Articles on circumcision – at blog
Nov 8, 10	Gender and Parenthood Saul, “The Politics of Work and Family” – at Blackboard	The Gender-Free Family Poisson, “Parents keep child’s gender a secret” – at blog Belkin, “When Mom and Dad share it all” – at blog DEBATE 4
Nov 15, 17	Religious Indoctrination Humphrey, “What shall we tell the children?” – at blog	Religious Indoctrination & Faith Healing Barrett, “Born believers” [video] – at blog Neilsen, “Faith healing” – at blog DEBATE 5
Nov 22, 24	Lying to Kids Kind, “Creative mothering...” – at Blackboard Kant, “On a supposed right to lie ...” – in Bioethics (ch. 67)	Thanksgiving Break
Nov 29, D 1	Duties to Parents English, “What do grown up children owe their parents?” – at blog Movie: Mildred Pierce	Leftovers PAPER 3 DUE