Why Is Flowers For Algernon Ethical

Luke Feisullin
Putman Hr. 5
15 November 2016
Argument Paper
Ethics are what society accepts to be justified, reasonable, and humane. In the story Flowers for Algernon, Charlie Gordon is a man with a mental disability that impairs his learning skills. A group of doctors decides to preform a surgery to enhance Charlie's intelligence. This course of action was unethical.
This is true because the doctors never informed Charlie of the procedure involved in the surgery. They also never considered the fact that Charlie might not be intelligent enough to make those types of decisions. Since the patient was incapacitated, and didn't have a qualified person to make decisions for him, the doctors couldn't really know if this is what

Charlie needed (Siegler).
Charlie Gordon's condition was not fatal, so he did not need the surgery to survive. The doctors knew that if they did not preform the operation, Charlie would still live a long, physically healthy life. Therefore, the procedure was a somewhat unnecessary risk. He was also socially unaccepted after the operation. This means that overall, his quality of living was not improved (Siegler).
However, one might argue that Charlie agreed to the procedure, but the doctors in the story never told him the probability of the operation's success. They also did not test Algernon long enough for truly accurate test results. Therefore, the doctors could have prevented Charlie from declining (Siegler).
The decision Charlie Gordon's doctors made was unethical and short-sighted. They only considered the short term benefit and didn't think about the long term results. They did not preform sufficient testing before-hand, and didn't inform the patient of the full risk involved in the procedure. The doctors did not make an ethical decision.

Citations:
https://depts.washington.edu/bioethx/tools/4boxes.html
http://www.symbaloo.com/mix/ffa-medicalethicsquest