So much cope in some of the recent reviews. Rob's lectures were a joke. Every single person I've talked to agrees. He rattles off historical trivia without ever saying what philosophical issue we're supposed to be covering and without barely any philosophical argument. The readings he gives are the same. Probably becaues almost all of his readings are written by him. I've done really well in the course so far but no clue how I'm going to do an exam on rob's part of the course.

Contrary to those who bombed the unit, the only reason you will fail is for failing to do the work or readings. I could not disagree more with the review bombers--and having met some of them, I can confirm for myself that their concept of philosophy is certainly not one shared by actually trained philosopher like Rob Wilson. What I want to know is precisely how they managed to fail the most basic requirement of any philosophy unit, namely, thinking about issues that are difficult? Like all the other one star reviews, they act as confessions rather than real criticisms and usually are hammered out by those without brains.

All the negative comments either don't realise that the literal most common application of bioethics is in regards to disability... or they know that and just have some implicit distain towards the fact that we are spending time thinking about the dignity of disabled people... either ways this is a great unit and Rob's focus on disability is warranted and relevant.

Great unit! Rob & Hayden are both fantastic. While Hayden will be going away next year, Rob is a great lecturer and an expert in the area. A good unit for anyone with an interest in Ethics.

Hayden's half of the unit is phenomenal; great insight into philosophers, actually posing insights into relevant philosophical questions, and lectures were clear and easy to understand. However, I completely agree with the review below me; lectures in the 2nd half are just life stories of philosophers with little philosophical discussion. The required readings after week 7 are literally all his articles, which imo is lowkey narcissist, and if you disagree with his views he hostilely challenges you in tutes. Hayden's leaving this sem, so do not take this unit until admin makes a change. Rob's clearly knowledgeable, but not a good teacher

Took this in 2026 when Hayden and Rob taught it together. Hayden's half was a bit hard but I learned a lot and liked it. The 2 stars is based on the half that Rob taught since Rob is apparently going to teach it alone from next year on. Rob's lectures were all really confusing and unhelpful. They spent waaay too long on the life stories of philosophers instead of the actual issues. And maybe I'm just too dumb but I couldn't figure out what the arguments were supposed to be in most of his lectures. Especially the lectures on eugenics which stopped being ethics or philosophy and was more like a long history lesson with a few of Rob's opinions tacked on with very minimal argument. Plus he assigns his own articles almost every week, and they're not good.... If you have the choice, give this unit a miss. At least until Rob's not teaching it.

Good lecturer. Awful tutor. Seems like the problem with spending the whole unit on disability has been fixed now.

like the comment from 2023, it hasn't changed much since then it seems. was informative, but I was looking forward to having a more nuanced idea of BIOETHICS, not the philosophy of disability. the assignment spread out was interesting (I hated the VSAs). learnt a lot and im always glad to do that, but its the only bioethics unit an undergrad can take at this time, so it felt a little repetitive and honestly, underwhelming.

IMPORTANT: This unit has been restructured and the teaching staff have changed since the five-star reviews were written. It hasn't been an improvement to say the least. The unit is now obsessed with disability and dedicates more than half of its teaching weeks exclusively to disability-related issues. There is a heavy slant towards a particular perspective: I don't say this because I think the unit is "biased" or anything like that, but because it just doesn't cover everything when it comes to bioethics. It gets repetitive and frankly boring. I found the teaching staff unhelpful and marking structures were deliberately not provided. There are far better philosophy units to take, and unless you have a strong interest in disability I strongly recommend you avoid this unit if possible.

One of my favourite units so far! Everything you need is provided, all you need to do is watch the lectures, do the readings and participate in the tutorials to get a good mark. The essay was marked fairly and the exam was straightforward. Highly recommend to anyone, especially philosophy majors.