Health Law and Ethics

This subject is designed to provide students with a broad understanding of some of the current legal, regulatory and ethical issues that arise in relation to promoting and protecting human health at an individual and population level. The subject aims to give students a sense of the breadth of the field that is ‘health law’ and to introduce them to some of the different ethical approaches commonly applied in this area, including utilitarianism, human rights, ethics of care, principle-based ethics and Kantian ethics. The subject will address the initial question of what it means to be ‘healthy’ and the appropriate role for law and regulation in in securing ‘good health’ before examining selected health law issues using an ethical framework.