During World War II, leading Nazi doctors performed sadistic human experiments and committed crimes against humanity. These doctors preformed medical experiments on prisoners against their will. These doctors were disguising these heinous crimes as research. The experiments were inhumane acts against all humans. They were morally wrong, but the data received is useful and is the only “good”(Moe 7) that has come out of these horrific crimes. Though the experiments were so horrific and immoral, the data gathered is still used to help advance medicine and has given us valuable information about the human species. How could these experiments be against human nature if they have benefited all humans at the expense of only a few? “Doctors from hell” (Appelbaum) is the commonly used epithet for the Nazi doctors to condemn them for their actions. But what is being said about the data they collected? Innovative, life saving, groundbreaking, these are words that are used to describe the data collected from the Nazi experiments. The same data that is commonly used as a stepping-stone in most research conducted in modern medicine. When is it convenient to view the data as morally justifiable? And when is it proper to use data that was collected from victims of Nazism? Does the use of the Nazi medical data support the actual experiments? This paper discusses the morality or immorality of the Nazi experiments and the data gathered from it. What dictates whether something is moral or immoral? Steven Pinker addresses this conundrum in his article “The Moral Instinct”. Pinker argues that “reassigning an activity to a different sphere, or taking it out of the moral spheres altogether, isn’t easy. People think that a behavior belongs in its sphere as a matter of sacred necessity and that the very act of questioning an assignment is a moral outrage” (Pinker p.52). Pinker argues that by examining our different moral thinking through the lens of these five moral spheres (harm, fairness, community, authority, purity), it may allow us not only to understand each other better, but also achieve more rational solutions to problems. Pinker’s argument relates back to the idea of the Nazi Medical experiments. The experiments seem to go against the five moral spheres and by trying to give them an assignment to a sphere will disrupt the balances of morality and will lead to ”moral outrage”. Unlike the medical experiments, the data is placed in the sphere of community and harm. Taking the data from those spheres would mean that you are endangering the benefit of the community and no longer helping prevent harm. The use of the data is seen as moral because it doesn’t hurt people but rather saves people. But by assigning the data to spheres that ultimately assigns the experiments as well. From Pinker’s argument about the spheres of morality, there doesn’t seem to be a way to moralize the data that derives from such immoral experiments without justifying and eventually moralizing the experiments themselves. The Nazi medical data is justified as being moral Pinker’s spheres of community and harm, but where is the morality of the experiments? The Nazi medical experiments are deemed unethical and immoral because they were conducted on unwilling participants. Though many were sacrificed, many more were saved. Many people during the time of the experiments supported the “follow-the -crowd” ethics and moralized the acts of the Nazis. Peter Singer outlined this “follow-the-crowd” ethics in his article “The Singer Solution to World Poverty”. He states “the kind of ethics [follow-the-crowd] that lead many Germans to look away when the Nazi atrocities were being committed. We do not excuse them because others were behaving no better” (Singer). During the morality of the experiments before was based on what everyone was doing, so it is safe to say that depending on the time period it was once safe to call the experiments moral. The experiments were in three
1) Explain in what way Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection was influenced by Thomas Malthus's Essay on the Principle of Population. (Ch 6, Bowler and Morus) First of all, what is Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection ?! Darwin’s theory of evolution entails the following fundamental ideas : Species (populations of interbreeding organisms) change over time and space. All organisms share common ancestors with other organisms. Over time, populations may divide into different…
“The chief problem in historical honesty is not outright lying. It is omission or deemphasis of important data. The definition of important, of course depends on one’s values.” (Use and Abuse of History51) The values that we hold to ourselves have come from our upbringing, from what we are taught growing up. It is no wonder that American’s see their country…
sacrifice for the return they will receive. The biggest issue is that this will actually restrict the freedom of speech and repress Chinese citizens. It is important to note that Google currently censors results in Germany and France that pertain to Nazi paraphernalia as well. Several organizations including “Reporters Without Borders” is extremely concerned on the impact this will have, and the message that it will send to the stakeholders in Google as well as the millions and millions of searchers…
Abbi Stearns Dr. New The Sex Education Project Section 1 A year ago, if someone would have asked me my definition of sex, I would have said for procreation and affection. After taking Human Sexuality, I now understand that sex does not just have a definition, but a purpose. I remember first learning about sex in the sixth grade at my friend’s Methodist church on a Wednesday night. It was an informational session describing that sex was strictly for a husband and wife, and that’s pretty much…
thinking) Aristotle (I won’t believe it unless I see it/ future of psych science) 1879- Wilhelm Wundt- Leipzig, Germany, measure mental processes Goals 1. Description- collect date about behavior under normal conditions 2. Explanation- go beyond data for process 3. Prediction- Likelihood that certain events will occur under certain conditions 4. Control- make behavior happen or not happen, POWERFUL! 5. Improve Quality of Life- apply for societal benefit 130 years old Emil Kraeplin-psychiatrist…
paper. The U.S entered the Second World War after Imperial Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on the morning of December 7, 1941. After 4 long years of fighting the American public had enough and wanted to end the war quickly after the defeat of Hitler’s Nazi Germany which ended the European Theater of the Second World War, leaving Japan the last country fighting the Allied Forces. The Battle of Midway on June 1942 would be the turning point of the Pacific War, after the Japanese suffered the first and…
TED is an organization dedicated to "Ideas worth spreading," which it makes available through talks posted on its website. (CNN) -- People have always known that inequality is divisive and socially corrosive. What is surprising, now that we have the data to compare societies, is how clear the effects of inequality are. A wide range of social problems are worse in societies with bigger income differences between rich and poor. These include physical and mental illness, violence, low math and literacy…
TABLE OF CONTENTS 1.0- JOHN STEINER AND GEORGE STEINER SIX PRIMARY SOURCES OF ETHICS: 6 1- Religion: 6 2- Genetic Inheritance: 8 3- Philosophical Systems: 8 4- Cultural Experience: 8 5- The Legal System: 9 6- Codes of Conduct: 9 2.0- EXPLANATION OF THE SOURCES OF ETHICS: 10 2.1- RELIGION: 10 Teaching business ethics 12 2.11- Impact Of Religiosity: 13 2.12- Ethics Of Islam: 14 Nature of Islamic Ethics 17 The Human-Environment Relationship: 20 The Sustainable…
Organizational Behavior (MGT 5702): Readings Review Sheet, Fall 2007 On the Folly of Rewarding A, While Hoping for B 1. What is the basic idea here? That we are put in situations in which the reward is greater or we are being rewarded for the behavior that the payer of the reward does not want. We want the reward and produce the behavior that will get us the reward, but is not what the payer was hoping for. The author seems to say that people “hope” that we will rise up and do what is right…
Welcome to Week #2 of APOL 104 D34 Posted on: Tuesday, March 24, 2015 7:58:40 AM EDT Congratulations to all of you for the completion of the first week of class. So far, you all did an excellent job completing the CRC and Contact Information quizzes on time. I pray that all of you had a great experience. All assignments for Week #2 are due next Monday, March 30, 2015 by 11:59pm EST. Here is what you should expect from Week #2: Text Reading: Weider & Gutierrez, Chapters 2 - 3…