FIF 649 - Ethics and Markets: What Should Be For Sale?

Course Description

In Canada, you can sell sex but not plasma. In Iran, you can sell your kidney to the government. In some parts of India, you can use a kidney as collateral on a loan. This course will investigate the ethics of all these markets, and the general question of what things should and should not be for sale. This will include examining specific "contested commodities" like adoption rights, reproductive capacity, sex, and transplantable organs.

Course Details

By completion of the course, successful students will be able to:

• Describe two different approaches to answering questions about the ethics of what should be for sale
• Recognize several different kinds of arguments for and against selling particular controversial goods
• Identify the strengths and weaknesses with the approaches and arguments they have learned to describe identity
• Define their own views about the ethics of specific controversial goods
• Compare the reasons for their ethical views with the reasons for other views about ethics and markets