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Back in the day, there was no such thing as electricity or power. Until one day, people discovered electricity and many inventions were created. Now, technology is everywhere, and is becoming a part of our everyday lives. This is unethical since the screen displays are deteriorating our eyesight everyday. Many people have glasses because of this. The short story, “Flowers for Algernon,” by Daniel Keyes, is about a man named Charlie, an intellectually disabled man, who is trying to be smart by going through a surgery. Instead of an exponential growth of knowledge, that prolongs for a reasonable amount of time, Charlie Gordon only got smarter to one point, and his mind started to deteriorate back to his original state. The experiment in “Flowers …show more content…
for Algernon” was not conducted ethically for many reasons. It violates the principle of Respect For Subjects. This operation lacks the rule of Favorable Risk-Benefit Ratio. Also, the guideline of Fair Subject Selection was disobeyed in the study. First of all, the experiment conducted in “Flowers for Algernon” violates the principle of Respect for Subjects.
Respect for Subjects, as defined by the U.S government, is to “show respect to human subjects, researchers must continue to check the well-being of each subject as the study proceeds. Researchers should remove subjects from the study if it becomes too risky or harmful.” (Emanuel et al. p.7, ¶7-8). The means that the doctors must keep checking on the subjects and must be removed if it was dangerous. Charlie wasn’t removed from the experiment even though it becomes harmful to him. This is why the study violates the principle of Respect for Subjects, as it doesn’t benefit Charlie, making this experiment treacherous. “I have already begun to notice signs of emotional instability and forgetfulness, the first symptoms of the burnout.” (Keyes June 5, ¶8). Charlie is struggling and is getting worse by the day, and Dr. Strauss and Nemur are not taking any action into it. At the same time, these doctors are still keeping Charlie in the experiment even though he is at discomfort. Later on in the passage, Charlie is at distress. “Deterioration progressing. I have become absentminded.” (Keyes June 10, ¶1). Charlie symptoms are getting worse progressively just because he recieved the experiment. He is returning back to his original state. In the story, Fair Subject Selection was clearly not applied to the experiment as is didn’t follow the regulation. The main reason why this …show more content…
experiment was not considered ethical is because the principle of Respect for Subjects was offended since the doctors didn’t take any action when Charlie’s mind is deteriorating. To continue, the experiment conducted in “Flowers for Algernon” eschewed the principle of Favorable Risk Benefit Ratio.
To make this guideline ethical, “any risks must be balanced by the benefits to subjects, and/or the important new knowledge society will gain. The riskier the research study, the more benefit it must offer to be considered ethical. As a part of this, the risks and burdens should be as low as possible.” (Emanuel et al. p.5 ¶8). This means that the chance of having a benefit must be more than a chance of a risk to be treated ethical. Charlie acquired a higher chance of death than receiving the benefit, violating the rule of Favorable Risk-Benefit Ratio. “Algernon died two days ago.” (Keyes June 10, ¶1). Even though Algernon was the first test subject to receive the experiment, Charlie was the first human to obtain the experiment. Since Algernon died, there could be a chance that Charlie could also perish because of the experiment. In the story, there was a more chance of a risk than benefit, making it unfair. In addition, Charlie figured about what had happened and what had gone wrong. “The unforeseen development, which I have taken the liberty of calling the Algernon-Gordon Effect, is the logical extension of the entire intelligence speed-up. The hypothesis here proven may be described simply in the following terms: Artificially increased intelligence deteriorates at a rate of time directly proportional to the quantity of the increase.” (Keyes June 5, ¶5).
Charlie gets smarter and smarter to one point. After sometime, his mind degrades and starts to get dumber and dumber. He is now back to where he was in the beginning. Whenever people conduct an experiment, the chance of having the benefit must be equal to or higher that the chance of getting a risk. In the story, when Charlie received the surgery, it might seem like it had a benefit, but it didn’t have one since he just went to back to normal. This is because he has been picking up side effects such as getting more dumb, making it a risk. Favorable Risk-Benefit Ratio is certainly being contravened. Last, but not least, the story violates the regulation of Fair Subject Selection. Fair Subject Selection means how “researchers should be fair in both recruiting and deciding which people can be in the study.” (Emanuel et al. p.5 ¶5). This means that people should choose fair subjects in their experiment to follow the concept of this principle. Since there were more people in need to receive the experiment than Charlie, this violates the rule of Fair Subject Selection. “Their going to use me!” (Keyes March 8 ¶1). Even though the quote mentioned that he was chosen, there could have been more people in need who have different disabilities. Fair Subject Selection is being disrupted since it must be fair both to the subjects, as well as the people benefiting from it, and since he was the only human test subject, there should have more subjects to make it fair. Also, another value that must be considered ethical to this rule is that “It is not fair to only use people who are easy to talk into participating, such as past cases when researchers used prisoners because they were easy to recruit.” (Emanuel et al. p.5 ¶7). Charlie can be an easy man to be hired in the surgery since he just wanted to become smarter, and the scientists think they can use him as a test subject. Even though Charlie wanted to get smart, he shouldn’t be going through a surgery just to help him. He should be learning like all the others. “All different kinds of people are needed to participate in research. Studies will eventually benefit more people if a wide range of people participate.” (Emanuel et al. p.5 ¶5). In an experiment, a person cannot just have one test subject to make it a fair experiment. To conclude, “Flowers for Algernon” is unethical as it disobeyes many principles. The rule of Respect for Subjects was not applied to the story. It violated the guideline of Favorable Risk-Benefit Ratio. Finally, the regulation of Fair Subject Selection was opposed. Other people may have said that the scientists weren’t completely done with the operation, so it would be hard to evaluate the results, making it ethical. Also, they said it can be ethical because Charlie got whatever he wanted. This can be unconvincing because the scientists didn’t really incorporate any of the principles to make it a fair experiment. For this study to be ethical, the scientists must think about the values of Respect for Subjects, Fair Subject Selection, Favorable Risk-Benefit Ratio, Informed Consent, Independent Review, and Scientific Validity. They didn’t include most of the principles into this experiment. To add-on, Charlie got what he wanted which was an increase in intelligence, and this only lasted temporarily making Charlie not get what he wants. If our community had taken the experiment, our society would suffer because of all the unethical regulations just like how it affected Charlie. These are all the reasons why I think this experiment is unethical.
Scientific experimentation shows a destructive nature of man through stereotypes. Stereotypes are cruel and heartless. “He makes the same mistakes as the others when they look at a feeble-minded person and laugh because they don’t understand there are human feelings involved. He doesn’t realise I was a person before I came here.” (Keyes, 145) Before the surgery Charlie was looked down upon because of his mental state. However, after the surgery he is treated like he was made by the scientists, as though he was their very own ‘Frankenstein’. This is a destructive nature of man because after the surgery Charlie finds out that his so called friends have been making fun of him his whole life. Stereotypes show a destructive nature of man. “People with mental illness are depicted as burdens to society and incapable of contributing in positive ways to their communities.” (Edney) Through this book the reader knows this statement is false, because Charlie is able to function fairly well in society, considering he has a job and he is doing very well there. Stereotypes show a destructive nature of man because they belittle people and make them feel worthless.
Those who were affected by the testing in hospitals, prisons, and mental health institutions were the patients/inmates as well as their families, Henrietta Lacks, the doctors performing the research and procedures, the actual institutions in which research was being held, and the human/health sciences field as a whole. Many ethical principles can be applied to these dilemmas: Reliance on Scientific Knowledge (1.01), Boundaries of Competence (1.02), Integrity (1.04), Professional and Scientific Relationships (1.05), Exploitative Relationships (1.07, a), Responsibility (2.02), Rights and Prerogatives of Clients (2.05), Maintaining Confidentiality (2.06), Maintaining Records (2.07), Disclosures (2.08), Treatment/Intervention Efficacy (2.09), Involving Clients in Planning and Consent (4.02), Promoting an Ethical Culture (7.01), Ethical Violations by Others and Risk of Harm (7.02), Avoiding False or Deceptive Statements (8.01), Conforming with Laws and Regulations (9.01), Characteristics of Responsible Research (9.02), Informed Consent (9.03), and Using Confidential Information for Didactic or Instructive Purposes (9.04), and Debriefing (9.05). These particular dilemmas were not really handled until much later when laws were passed that regulated the way human subjects could be used for research. Patients
The Asch and Milgram’s experiment were not unethical in their methods of not informing the participant of the details surrounding the experiment and the unwarranted stress; their experiment portrayed the circumstances of real life situation surrounding the issues of obedience to authority and social influence. In life, we are not given the courtesy of knowledge when we are being manipulated or influenced to act or think a certain way, let us be honest here because if we did know people were watching and judging us most of us would do exactly as society sees moral, while that may sound good in ensuring that we always do the right thing that would not be true to the ways of our reality. Therefore, by not telling the participants the detail of the experiment and inflicting unwarranted stress Asch and Milgram’s were
The study took advantage of an oppressed and vulnerable population that was in need of medical care. Some of the many ethical concerns of this experiment were the lack of informed consent, invasion of privacy, deception of participants, physical harm, mental harm, and a lack of gain versus harm. One ethical problem in this experiment was that the benefits did not outweigh the harm to participants. At the conclusion of the study there were virtually no benefits for the participants or to the treatment of syphilis. We now have
Therefore, he states he wants to “focus the paper on the arguments offered in support of the claim that these trials were unethical,” (302). The first criticism states,” injustice was done to the control group…second, the participants in the trial were coerced into participating…third, the countries in question were exploited,” (302). Against the first criticism, he argues that if the clinical trials were not conducted the participants would not have received proper treatment. For the second criticism, he states that coercion, “involves a threat to put someone below their baseline unless they cooperate with the demands of the person
They failed to see Charlie as a human being, not a test subject. They also weren't acting ethically when they chose Charlie as the test subject, when he was not mentally capable of making such a decision to say yes to the experiment. Although Charlie's doctors were unethical when they performed the experiment on Charlie, they were going into an unknown field of study where no known procedures were in place with patient interaction and concern. All in all, Charlie Gordans' doctors did not act ethically when they performed the experimental surgery to improve his intelligence.
After weeks of testing Charlie is selected and has the procedure performed. There are no noticeable changes immediately, however after some time Charlie begins to have flashbacks and mixed emotions of his childhood for example, Charlie’s first flashback begins with him standing in front of the bakery as a child and it goes blurry and cuts out. (2) As Charlies intellect increases so does his perception of the world around him and the way people act toward him. Charlie finally begins to realize guilt and shame along with all other natural human
“I recall your once saying to me that an experimental failure or the disproving of a theory was as important to the advancement of learning as a success would be” (Keyes 301). The reader now understands the experiment was not a success. Charlie also validates Algernon’s expected death when he says “Algernon died two days ago. Dissection shows my predictions were right. His brain had decreased in weight and there was a general smoothing out of cerebral convolutions as well as a deepening and broadening of brain fissures” (302). This confirms Algernon’s expected death by the “Algernon-Gordon
The experiment was to see if people would follow the orders of an authority figure, even if the orders that were given proved to cause pain to the person taking the test. In the “Milgram Experiment” by Saul McLeod, he goes into detail about six variations that changed the percentage of obedience from the test subject, for example, one variable was that the experiment was moved to set of run down offices rather than at Yale University. Variables like these changed the results dramatically. In four of these variations, the obedience percentage was under 50 percent (588). This is great evidence that it is the situation that changes the actions of the individual, not he or she’s morals.
Charlie?s experiment was temporary, and overtime his IQ regressed. Algernon, a mouse that went through the same surgery as Charlie, died. If Charlie?s hypothesis proves correct, then he will die as well. Charlie?s life was better before the experiment because he was not exposed to the risks and consequences of the surgery. Without the experiment, Charlie would still be living his ignorant but happy life.
According to APA’s guidelines, John Watson’s “Little Albert” study would not be allowed today because of ethical violations. One ethical violation is the lack of consent from the subject. Little Albert could never give consent because he was an infant. Watson took advantage of the fact that Albert could not tell people that he wanted to withdraw from the study. Participants should always know what the study will involve and what risks might develop.
In the United States, the basis for ethical protection for human research subjects in clinical research trials are outlined by the Belmont Report developed in the late 1970’s. This document, published by the Nation Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research, highlights three important basic principles that are to be considered when any clinical trial will involve human research subjects. They are; respect for persons, beneficence, and justice. (Chadwick & Gunn, 2004)
In modern day society, doing medical research on living human subjects is cruel and simply unheard of. Not only has new technology eliminated the need for it altogether, researchers have learned that it is inhumane. However, the world of medicine has not always been so progressive. People were frequently used for tests throughout history, and to make matters worse, were usually lied to about what was happening to them. Because of this, those who were used as test subjects exhibited symptoms of both physical and mental decay. The short story “Flowers for Algernon” and the film Miss Evers’ Boys help to illustrate the several ethical issues of using humans as test subjects and the negative impact this testing had on the well being of the subjects.
This balance is quite important as the well being of participants is at risk. Over the last twentieth century, there have been numerous examples in which ethical principles have not been considered in research leading to ethical breaches that have negative implications on study participants.1 One US human experimentation study which breached ethical conduct was the US Public Health Service Syphilis Study, more commonly known as the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, which was conducted from 1932 through 1972.2 The study recruited 399 African-American male subjects diagnosed with syphilis. The recruited men came from poor, rural counties around Tuskegee, Alabama. The stated purpose of the study was to obtain information about the course of untreated syphilis. The study was initially meant to be for 6 months, however the study was modified into a “death as end-point study”.
Unethical experiments have occurred long before people considered it was wrong. The protagonist of the practice of human experimentation justify their views on the basis that such experiments yield results for the good of society that are unprocurable by other methods or means of study ( Vollmann 1448 ).The reasons for the experiments were to understand, prevent, and treat disease, and often there is not a substitute for a human subject. This is true for study of illnesses such as depression, delusional states that manifest themselves partly by altering human subjectivity, and impairing cognitive functioning. Concluding, some experiments have the tendency to destroy the lives of the humans that have been experimented on.