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PrincetonUniversity
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• Program of Freshman Seminars in the Residential Colleges
• "Bioethics and Public Policy" --Harold T. Shapiro, delivered December 1998
Photograph by Rita Nannini
President teaches freshmen bioethics. In 1996
President Clinton appointed President Shapiro to chair the
newly created National Bioethics Advisory Commission; this
fall he is teaching a freshman seminar, Historical and
Contemporary Issues in Bioethics.
"The experience of leading the
commission, which focuses on the intersection of ethics,
biology and public policy, has had a big impact on my
teaching in this particular class," Shapiro said. "I hope I
bring to it a sense of immediacy, relevance and focus.
What best captures the imagination
of the students in the class? "An important principle to
which they can easily relate, especially when it involves a
dilemma where we are unsure what our moral obligations are,"
said Shapiro. "For example, who has the moral legitimacy to
make decisions about how to treat a severely disabled
newborn? The parents? The doctor? The state? Virtually
everyone has either had a personal experience or knows
somebody who has had one, where this type of question came
up. Students like to grapple with an issue that has no
obvious answers, where there are resources from moral
philosophy that may help and where the topic has some
grounding in their experience."
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