This course aims to help students investigate the ethical basis of health care policy and guides them to draw on both the Western and Chinese moral resources to address ethical issues involved in health care distribution, clinical decision making, and new biomedical technologies. Students will be stimulated to reflect critically on their own values and to formulate justifiable judgement on contemporary health care policy and bioethical issues. Specifically, the course will

(a) Explore and evaluate the basic values underpinning the organization and financing of health care allocation;

(b) Examine different models of clinical decision making and analyse their implications for upholding the values of professional accountability, patient interests and family integrity in doctor-patient-family encounters;

(c) Investigate controversial ethical issues of new biotechnology surrounding the beginning of life, sex selection, surrogate motherhood, stem cell research, and human cloning, and explore the moral justification of different responses to these issues.