Course Topic: Ethics and the Impact of Technology on Society, Fall

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Catalog Description

College courses foster and support the ideals of a liberal arts education at the highest level of excellence. Because of the rapidly changing nature of technology, new and complex ethical issues are emerging that bring into question the ability of society to address and, ideally, resolve them. New issues are arising in such areas as biotechnology, information technology, nanotechnology and nuclear technology, and range from protecting the health and welfare of the public and the environment, to patenting living organisms and labeling products containing genetically modified organisms, to concerns regarding the alteration of the ecology of life.

This seminar focuses on the nature of these emerging technical issues, their ethical, legal, and social ramifications, and what individuals and our society value in relation to these issues. We will examine what philosophy, religion and art, and natural and social science have to say about these issues.