“Human Rights and Bioethics: Curb Your Enthusiasm”

Professor John Arras from the University of Virginia presented the seventh annual Matthew Vandivier Sims Memorial Lecture, entitled “Human Rights and Bioethics: Curb Your Enthusiasm,” on April 3, 2008. Arras is the Porterfield Professor of Biomedical Ethics and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Virginia, where he created and directs the Undergraduate Program in Bioethics. In his presentation, Professor Arras addressed issues involved in genetic enhancement and human rights and how human rights and access to health care are related.

Listen to the Entire Program

or listen by topic by clicking below

• Introduction by Brian Schrag
  Acting Director of the Poynter Center for the Study of Ethics and American Institutions
  
• Opening remarks
  
• Explanation of book project
  Focus on human rights as a method for thinking and talking about ethics
  
• Views of bioethics
  
• “Human rights is, in fact, the lingua franca of bioethics.”
  
• Trouble with human rights
  examples
  
• Goal of lecture
  Interest-based theory of human rights
  
• Genetic enhancement and human rights
  
• Access to health and health care and human rights
  
• Conclusion