Bitesize ethics summer 2026

yellow and white background with half-eaten biscuits and text Bitesize ethics

This 8-week online programme provides a short introduction to some of the ethical issues affecting decisions taken around the beginning and end of life of living things, based on current research from academics at the Uehiro Oxford Institute. Prof Dominic Wilkinson provides a general introduction in week one, and the series continues with a different specialist each Wednesday, addressing themes such as conscience and conscientious objection, age-based decision-making, AI and life extension, the ‘badness’ of death, and difficult decisions in healthcare. The series will finish with a wrap-up discussion looking back at the topics covered, led by Dr Jonathan Pugh.

Registration is free and no prior experience or study is necessary. Each 45-minute class will take place online via Zoom on Wednesday lunchtimes and participation in the informal Q&As and discussion sessions following each week’s presentations is warmly encouraged.

Programme dates: 24th June - 12th August. Classes will take place 12:35-13:20 online via Zoom and will typically consist of a 30 minute presentation followed by a Q&A. Full details of the programme and registration links can be found below and video recordings will be posted as soon as possible after each session.

Registration

To register, please visit our Bookwhen page.

Date: 24/06/2026

Tutor: Dominic Wilkinson

This session will provide an introduction to and an overview of this year’s Bitesize ethics program. Discussion of life and death questions and difficult decisions might seem heavy or even off-putting, however, these are topics that affect all of us. As Benjamin Franklin famously noted, mortality (like taxes) is unavoidable!

On the other hand, discussion of death and dying does not have to be depressing. Thinking about what matters to us (as well as talking about our wishes with those close to us) can be particularly important. It can also lead us to reflect on the value and meaning of life and living.

Dominic Wilkinson is Professor of Medical Ethics at the University of Oxford, and a Consultant Neonatologist

Date: 01/07/2026

Tutor: Kat Jennings

This session will explore the moral limits of age-based exclusion in adolescent decision-making. Liberal societies typically grant adults extensive authority over their own bodies and futures, while restricting similar authority for children and adolescents through age-based rules. But what happens when adolescents appear to possess many of the same decision-making capacities as adults? Are age thresholds a fair way of determining who gets to decide, or do they sometimes unjustly exclude - or even sometimes unjustly include - young people from shaping their own lives? Drawing on debates in both ethics and political philosophy, this session will ask when, if ever, adolescents should be permitted to make major life decisions for themselves and whether there are certain choices where age-based exclusion becomes especially difficult to justify.

Kat Jennings is a DPhil student at the University of Oxford, studying with Dr Cesar Palacios-Gonzalez.

Date: 08/07/2026

Tutor: Alberto Giubilini

This session will discuss the problem of conscientious objection in healthcare. What is the proper space of doctors’ conscience and of freedom of conscience in the delivery of healthcare? If a doctor is asked to provide a medical service they morally object to, would the refusal to provide it violate professional obligations ? And ultimately, what does it mean to be a (healthcare) professional, and what is the place of one’s own conscience within professionalism?

Alberto Giubilini is Deputy Director of Education and Senior Research Fellow at the Uehiro Oxford Institute.

Date: 22/07/2026

Tutor: Cristina Voinea

Could AI allow part of us to live on after we die? In this session, I explore that question through the idea of “digital doppelgängers”, AI systems trained on a person’s data to resemble their voice, memories, values, and personality. I argue that, even if digital doppelgängers cannot extend our biological lives, they may still help preserve important aspects of who we were.

Cristina Voinea is Senior Research Fellow at the Uehiro Oxford Institute, working on the ethics of human-AI relationships.

Bitesize ethics summer 2026

Bitesize Ethics 2026: Life, death and difficult decisions

Week 1: Introduction to life, death and difficult decisions

Week 2: Too Young to Decide? The Moral Limits of Age-Based Exclusion, bringing disciplines together to create new knowledge

Week 3: Conscience and conscientious objection in healthcare

Week 4: The Badness of Death Details

Week 5: AI and Life Extension

Week 6: Death and Resource Allocation

Week 7: TBA

Week 8: Difficult Decisions in Healthcare