Bioethics

Researchers on the bioethics track consider ethical questions which deal with the treatment and rights of patients, decision-making in health care, medical examination, and concepts of health and illness. Questions concerning environmental ethics and ethics of technology are also of interest in this line of study.

Bioethics is applied ethics: different ethical theories and conceptual distinctions are applied in discussions of special issues concerning health. Bioethics also reveals the problems of the theoretical approaches and challenges the researcher to create new kinds of conceptual distinctions.

Social ethicists on the track of bioethics frequently cooperate interdisciplinarily with experts in the fields of medical, health and juridical sciences and philosophy of medicine. The issue of bioethics was first addressed by theologians in the 1950s. In the future, the role of theology will further increase, as ethical discussion in a multicultural society demands proficiency in religion.

Experts: Janne Nikkinen, Jaana Hallamaa, Karoliina Nikula, Mari Stenlund

Summer course: Introduction to Bioethics