Examines the key concepts used in applied ethics, and particularly bioethics, and the ways in which new biotechnological developments challenge these assumptions. Focuses on conceptions of human nature, ethical responsibility and the relation of the human and technological, or natural and cultural, and the ways in which these operate within key ethical theories. Issues to be discussed may include reproductive and genetic technologies, genetic modification and bio-risk, and nanotechnology. Philosophical texts used may include works by philosophers such as Kant, Hume, Nietzsche, Foucault, Habermas, Derrida, and others.