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This course is designed to help you build essential skills for thinking about, understanding, and engaging with reasoning about ethics, while learning how these skills have been used by philosophers to investigate central issues and debates arising in the ethics of medicine at the intersection of fundamental philosophical ideas in metaphysics, epistemology, and the philosophy of science. After completing modules that introduce you to the course and these important methods, you choose three from the following four bioethics modules: abortion, dementia and advance directives, the philosophy and ethics of psychiatric classification and conditions, and the Comforting Delusion Objection to psychedelic therapy. Each unit lasts three days, with work submitted at the end of each unit.

Learning Objectives

• Discover essential skills for understanding, thinking and reasoning about, and engaging with ethical reasoning (in general and in bioethics);
• Apply these reasoning skills to engage with and address ethical dilemmas in medicine, drawing upon foundational ideas from metaphysics, epistemology, and the philosophy of science;
• Demonstrate the ability to identify key claims and arguments offered by professional philosophers about issues related to autonomy, well-being, and the self in at least three of the following topics: the ethics of abortion, advance directives, the philosophy and ethics psychiatric conditions and classification, or psychedelic therapy and the Comforting Delusion Objection;
• Do one or more of the following:
  • Take part in philosophical inquiry by making use of at least one standard way of engaging in philosophical discussion (from Professor Olivia Bailey's guide on participating in philosophical discussion), either on a discussion board or in a novel writing activity;
  • Connect learning of key concepts, terms, principles, and claims from the material to other "real world" issues or your own life experiences;
  • Formulate a plausible line of objection to a philosopher's argument of your choice by utilizing specific critical thinking skills and philosophical reasoning methods developed in the Critical Thinking Bootcamp;
  • Apply course material and critical thinking skills to evaluate and rectify erroneous or flawed answers that are expressed clearly and persuasively (such as those generated by an AI like ChatGPT);
  • Design and produce a comprehensive lecture video series on a chosen article, synthesizing its main ideas into slides and recordings, and introducing one novel connection or insight.

In this course, you will

   Learn and develop fundamental "soft-skills" that generalize to thinking about ethical issues (in your life, in bioethics, and in the world more generally); You don't need to have any background in this from previous philosophy classes! You'll learn "need-to-know" basics in the first unit and then you'll learn them more as I use them to explain the content of the course in lecture videos!

   “Design your own version of the course” by choosing (a) which Bioethics content to learn and (b) which activities you’ll do to earn the grade that you want; Some activities are required for certain overall grades (e.g., writing a short critical response for earning an overall A-, and additionally doing the Create a New Lecture Video series for earning an overall A) but you get a good deal of flexibility to “choose your own adventure”!

   Expand your understanding of how people have thought, and continue to think, about pressing issues at the intersection of medicine, ethics, and other fundamental philosophical questions. 

Meet Your Instructor

Zak Kopeikin 

  Zak.Kopeikin@Colorado.edu 

I am an Assistant Teaching Professor (previously called "Instructor") in the philosophy department here at ��ƷSM����ӰƬ.

I dropped out of college twice (during my freshman year at UC Santa Cruz in 2006-2007 for a medical/mental health reason; during Fall 2008 for a gig as a showband musician on Carnival Cruise Lines).

I earned my AA in General Humanities and a Certificate in Commercial Music Performance from Santa Barbara City College in 2011, my BA in Philosophy from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2013 and my PhD in Philosophy from CU in 2020.

I spent ages 18-25 working primarily as a professional musician (bass player). I played with a number of working bands and groups. I still play (with local, professional salsa band Los Chicos Malos) but I’m quite happy not to be working Thursday through Saturday nights anymore!

I direct an outreach program that introduces Colorado k-12 school students to philosophy. One of the projects I'm developing is called "Living Better through Philosophy and Critical Thinking", which will introduce high-school students to philosophical ideas and critical thinking skills relevant to various problems of living (such as figuring out one's values, navigating healthy relationships, and working on various forms of self-defeating thinking).

I share my life with Sara (wife/partner) and Venus (cat). Our first child, Arie, was born in January 2024.

I also like to hike, climb rocks, go birding, and ride my Onewheel (Pint X). I broke my femur riding the Onewheel in Fall of 2022, so I’m riding it much more carefully now! (It feels like snowboarding on the best powder days, which makes it kind of hard to give up.)