The Program in Bioethics promotes a broad conception of Bioethics encompassing both medical and environmental ethics through conferences, workshops, public lectures, and graduate courses. Based in Arts and Science, it draws as well on faculty affiliates and programs in the schools of Medicine, Law, Education, and Public Service.

The NYU Center for Bioethics was launched in September 2007 with a Chair endowed by Dr. Arthur Zitrin, who for over 40 years was a prime mover in ethics education at the NYU Medical Center, and with further support from the Faculty of Arts and Science. The founding aim of the Center was to offer an M.A. in Bioethics that combined medical and environmental ethics within a diverse academic and urban setting taught by faculty throughout the University, and to conduct research and sponsor public activities throughout the community. Closely coupled with the NYU Environmental Studies Program, the Center's core faculty is doubling in size, and the Center's students are drawn from different backgrounds, countries, and career paths.

Although still taught separately in most universities, Medical Ethics and Environmental Ethics have in recent years grown closer in concerns and concepts.  Initially focused on doctors, patients, and research subjects, medical ethicists have increasingly taken up social issues of access to healthcare, drug testing and distribution, and spread of disease on both local and transnational scales. Once focused on preservation of wilderness, natural resources, and biodiversity, environmental ethicists are more and more concerned with the “built environment” and its impacts on human health and wellbeing.

Likewise, the two fields have advanced moral principles and concepts similar enough to invite close comparison—for example, “Above all do no harm” with the Precautionary Principle; the “sanctity” of human life with the “intrinsic value” of non-human life; just distribution of healthcare with just distribution of environmental burdens; personal  responsibility for individual health with collective responsibility for “environmental health.”

In conjunction with the new Program in Environmental Studies the Program in Bioethics will examine these and other topics of mutual relevance, support, and conflict.

A major focus of the Bioethics Program is the Master of Arts degree program, Bioethics: Life, Health, and Environment. The program consists of required core courses, a set of elective courses which can be taken from the specialized Health Track or Environment Track, an optional practicum, and an optional Master’s essay totaling 32 credits.  The degree can be completed within a twelve-month period of two semesters and a summer session. (See a sample course plan here.) It welcomes students at different stages of their education or careers, in particular:

• Recent college graduates who wish to explore Bioethics, broadly conceived, before committing themselves to doctoral studies and/or professional work in Medical or Environmental Ethics.
• Physicians, nurses, and health care administrators who want to go beyond the short, intensive courses or certificate programs at NYU and elsewhere in the New York area.
• Medical students during or after completion of medical school who hope to serve on hospital bioethics committees or teach medical ethics after their residencies.
• People in the Metropolitan area who want to think more clearly and systematically about moral issues debated in the media, legislatures, and other public arenas.