Philosophy 2330:
Science and Society - (Philosophy of Medicine)
Fall, 2022

Professor Joel Velasco
Office: 251C (Eng/Phil building)
Office Hours: Tu, Th, F 11-12:00 or by appointment

Class meets T, Th, 9:30-10:50 (in English 301)

All of the boilerplate information such as course policies and the grading scheme can be found on the syllabus. The readings for the course are below.

Syllabus

Required Books:

Care and Cure: An Introduction to Philosophy of Medicine by Jacob Stegenga. The University of Chicago Press, 2018.

All class assignments and any other readings will be found on this website. You should check this website reguarly for updates and bring copies of the assigned readings to class. All readings should be done before the date they are listed here. Come to class on that day prepared to discuss them.

This is a tentative schedule/reading list:

Week 1 - Introduction

Thur, 8/25
- Introduction
Extras
- Concepcion, How to read philosophy (the appendix especially)

Week 2 - Conceptual Issues in Medicine - Health and Disease

Tue, 8/30
- Care and Cure, Ch1
Thur, 9/1
- Care and Cure, Ch2
Extras:
- Watch: Diagnosis, Season 1, Episode 1 [Netflix]
- Boorse, Health as a theoretical concept
- Kingma, What is it to be healthy? (critical of Boorse)
- Hausman, Health and functional efficiency (defends Boorse)
- Alexandrova, Can the science of well-being be objective?

Week 3 - Disease

Tue, 9/6
- Care and Cure, Ch2 (cont)
- Cooper, Disease
Thur, 9/8
- Ereshefsky, Defining 'health' and 'disease'
Extras:
- Kukla, What counts as a disease and why does it matter?
- Engelhardt, The disease of masturbation: values and the concept of disease
- Amundson, Against normal function

Week 4 - Death

Mon, 9/12
- short essay #1 due (sample essay - from a similar assignment)
Tue, 9/13
- Care and Cure, Ch3
Thur, 9/15
- Barclay, (editorial introduction) - guidelines for the determination of death
- President's commission (appendix) - guidelines for the determination of death
Extras:
- Nagel, Death
- McMahan, The metaphysics of brain death
- Meier, The demise of brain death
- President's Commission (full report) - Defining Death
- Thomson, A defense of abortion
- Marquis, Why abortion is immoral

Week 5 - Controversial Diseases

Tue, 9/20
- Care and Cure, Ch6
Thur, 9/22
Extras:
- Why we crave (from Aeon)

Week 6 - Exam week

Tue, 9/27
- tutorial #1 , tutorial schedule
Thur, 9/29
- In Class Exam - Bring a Blue Book
  (exam from last fall) - sample answers
Extras:

Week 7 - Evidence in Medicine

Tue, 10/4
- Care and Cure, Ch7
Thur, 10/6
- Care and Cure, Ch8
Extras:
- One big myth about medicine: We know how drugs work (Washington Post)
- Cartwright, Are RCTs the gold standard?
- Cartwright, A philosopher's view of the long road from RCTs to effectiveness
- Worrall, Evidence in Medicine and Evidence-Based Medicine
- La Caze, The randomized controlled trial: Internal and external validity (in Solomon ch 18 on Blackboard)

Week 8 - Inference

Tue, 10/11
- Care and Cure, Ch9
Thur, 10/13
Extras:

Week 9 -Statistical Inference

Tue, 10/18
- Care and Cure, Ch9 - section 9.5
Thur, 10/20
- Care and Cure, Ch11
Extras:
- The new math of clinical trials (the Bayesian doctor)
- Plutynski, Ethical issues in cancer screening and prevention
- Plutynski, Safe or Sorry? Cancer Screening and Inductive Risk
- Welch and Black, Overdiagnosis in Cancer
- Gigerenzer et al. Helping doctors and patients make sense of health statistics

Week 10 - Diagnosis and Screening

Mon, 10/24
- short essay #2 due
Tue, 10/25
- Care and Cure, Ch11
- Quanstrum and Hayward, Lessons from the mammography wars
Thur, 10/27
- visit from Dr. Brad Snodgrass
Extras: