Flowers For Algernon Ethics

429 Words1 Page

Alex Fink
Putman
Hour 2/5
15 November 2016
Argument Paper
Ethics are creation of good standards and well founded sense of right from wrong that governs what we do. In the book flowers for Algernon, Charlie is a 37 year old man who is not as smart as the rest with an I.Q. of 68, he wants to be smart so some doctors tried an operation on him to triple his I.Q., but it is only experimental. Charlie Gordon's doctors didn't act ethically when they preformed the surgery to make him smarter.
The doctors didn't know the effects of the operation and did it anyways. They failed to consider the question of what might happen to Charlie and how it might impact him (Siegler). In the book Charlie sees that Algernon is affected by the operation and does research to see the long term effects of the operation, "I have been given my own lab and permission to go ahead with the research." …show more content…

One of the questions in Siegler's article was "will it improve the patients quality of life?" And they tried to help him. A quote from FFA shows they try to help him live better "Miss Kinnian says maybe they can make me smart." And they try to keep him smart so he can have better standards (Keyes 53).
The doctors operating on Charlie acted unethically when they tried to make him smarter. They didn't know the effects of it because he was their first human test subject. Also they never used the ethical decisions listed in Sieglers article. Doctors did try to improve his quality of life but failed in the end though. Overall the surgery was unethical.

"Flowers for Algernon" Symbaloo citations
Siegler, M., and W. Winslade. "Ethics in Medicine." Clinical Ethics. By A. R. Jonsen. 7th ed. N.p.:
McGraw-Hill, 2010. N. pag. Print.
Keyes, Daniel. Flowers for Algernon. New York: Harcourt, Brace an World, 1966 Print
Dorbin, Arthur, D.S.W. "Five Steps to Better Ethical Decision Making." Psychology Today. Sussex
Publishers, LLC, 13 July 2012. Web. 10 Nov.

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