The aim of this course is to discuss, on the one hand, how the advancement of science makes us reconsider a number of ethical dilemmas and, on the other hand, the role of ethics in our understanding of scientific activity. A case in point of the former is the advancement of neurosciences: they make us wonder, for instance, in what sense our conception of human responsibility depend on certain brain functions. As to the latter, we may wonder to what extent science is a disinterested activity in view of the conflicts of interests generated by the pharmaceutical sponsoring of biomedical research. We want to present here a number of approaches that will allow us to address both types of problems.
