Ethical judgments limit the methods available in the production of knowledge in both the arts and the natural sciences

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Knowledge is basically the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject. It consists of facts and skills acquired by a person through experience or education. Ethical considerations are relative to one’s own knowledge, experience, and value system. According to Hunt and Vitell (1986), ethical judgment is the process of considering several alternatives and choosing the most ethical alternative. For Rest (1986), ethical judgment is the process by which an individual determines that one alternative is morally right and another alternative is morally wrong. “Broadly, ethical judgement can be defined so as to include the decision process as well as the action itself.” This essay aims to discuss the way in which ethical judgements limit the methods available in the production of knowledge in both the arts and natural sciences.
Scientific research is used in the production of knowledge. In some cases, ethical judgements limit this method of knowledge production. For example and due to limited prevalence of a certain disease, and the high cost of research, experimentation is rather limited; therefore leading to poor health care for those patients suffering from this disease. Patients who suffer from a complicated ophthalmic disease characterized by the absence of their eye pupils are not being taken into consideration as their number is rather small, and there is limited scientific research to improve their eyesight.

Animal testing raises a very large debate in the field of science and ethics. Making animals suffer for the benefit of man is definitely immoral; however, many believe that it is needed for making scientific advances.
It is true that the human race would not be where it is today without the findings that scientists ...

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...owledge produced based on experimentation, which is based on deductive and inductive reasoning, and not affected by ethical judgments.

Debates on issues such as scientific research on certain ailments and animal testing in the science, to photos about vulnerable refugee populations and war documentaries in the arts, have been ongoing. For both, ethical judgments have hindered the production in the art and natural sciences. Nonetheless; there definitely needs to be an equal medium as the world will continue to change and progress, and humans need to learn to go with this flow, but remember to know what the limits are, when to stop, or when to push past them and thrive.

Works Cited

http://arianaaltman.wordpress.com/2014/02/18/tok-essay-revised/
http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/content/11/2/179.full.pdf?origin=publication_detail

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