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| Thread: Morals VS Technology... |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 · NEXT» |
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Smithey
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posted May 24, 2011 12:55 AM |
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Morals VS Technology...
Ethics and morality usually clash with technological advancements, should we do whatever is necessary for the greater good or should we stay restricted within the borders of "morality" ?
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Lord_Woock
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posted May 24, 2011 12:59 AM |
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Science should plough on through morality but yield to ethics.
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mvassilev
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posted May 24, 2011 01:32 AM |
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The question is too vague to answer. Could you be more specific?
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Smithey
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posted May 24, 2011 01:38 AM |
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Human experimenting or any other contreversial topic that stops science from progressing, there are quite a few 
Is morality/ethics more important than progress ? should we move forward no matter what the cost is ?
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mvassilev
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posted May 24, 2011 01:41 AM |
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Is the human experimentation consensual? I need more specifics here. Because right now this topic sounds like "how many apples should we give up for oranges?"
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Smithey
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posted May 24, 2011 01:43 AM |
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Of course it's not, that's the meaning of "at all cost"
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mvassilev
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posted May 24, 2011 01:44 AM |
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In that case, we shouldn't do anything "no matter what the cost is". We have to weigh the costs and the benefits.
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Smithey
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posted May 24, 2011 01:49 AM |
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Edited by Smithey at 01:51, 24 May 2011.
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You can't possibly weigh the benefits as we still don't know what the future holds, the whole point of experiments on humans is for a possible benefit, sacrificing 20 or 100 men for the mere possibility of curing cancer and saving millions, it is all hypothetical because experiments by definition mean the result is still unknown....
edit : There is also the definition of "consensual", after all desperate people will agree to anything, so what is consensual at all ?
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mvassilev
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posted May 24, 2011 02:00 AM |
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We can weigh the expected benefits, then, and adjust downward because of risk.
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after all desperate people will agree to anything, so what is consensual at all ?
If they've given consent and are legal adults and not impaired, it's consensual.
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Smithey
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posted May 24, 2011 02:11 AM |
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We can weigh the expected benefits, then, and adjust downward because of risk.
Which means yes to at all cost or no ?
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If they've given consent and are legal adults and not impaired, it's consensual.
Parents of a dying kid will agree to be experimented on in order to save their kid's life, it is unethical hence not legal, should it be allowed considering it's consensual ? step further, the parents are rich, and they pay millions to random poor guy who is desperate for money in order to feed his family, they pay him to be the human experiment, consensual indeed, should it be allowed ?
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Elodin
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posted May 24, 2011 02:20 AM |
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Quote:
Ethics and morality usually clash with technological advancements, should we do whatever is necessary for the greater good or should we stay restricted within the borders of "morality" ?
Technology is a tool. It does not clash with morality. Technology can be used for good or for evil. The acquisition of technology can be done by good or evil means.
It is good to want to cure AIDS. It is evil to kidnap people, infect them with HIV, and use them in experiments designed to find a cure for AIDS.
There is indeed a conflict, but it is not a conflict between technology and morality. It is the conflict between evil people and good people.
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Smithey
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posted May 24, 2011 02:26 AM |
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Edited by Smithey at 02:28, 24 May 2011.
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On this topic there is no clear line between good and evil, there is a grey area between the two, if a scientist is presented with the choice of killing 20 innocent ones in order to save millions of others by finding a cure for HIV, to call him evil is a bit of a stretch considering he is doing so in order to save lives, to call him unethical is the proper term I would use....
Presidents/generals make same decisions every day and YOU support those decisions, sacrifice few to save the others, or maybe you should call them all evil as well ?
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mvassilev
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posted May 24, 2011 02:35 AM |
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Which means yes to at all cost or no ?
No. Nothing "at all costs". "At all costs" means you're willing to sacrifice everything to get one thing, and nothing is worth that much.
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Parents of a dying kid will agree to be experimented on in order to save their kid's life, it is unethical hence not legal, should it be allowed considering it's consensual ? step further, the parents are rich, and they pay millions to random poor guy who is desperate for money in order to feed his family, they pay him to be the human experiment, consensual indeed, should it be allowed ?
Both should be allowed, and neither is unethical. All of the parties agreed and it's not harming anyone who didn't agree, so no one has the right to stop them.
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if a scientist is presented with the choice of killing 20 innocent ones in order to save millions of others by finding a cure for HIV
Then these ridiculous hypotheticals will be relevant, but otherwise, can you give an actual relevant example that you're not making up and is an actual current ethical issue?
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Fauch
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posted May 24, 2011 02:52 AM |
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well, I agree with elodin, technology itself isn't good or bad and do not clash with morality. you can kill with a car, so is a car bad?
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if a scientist is presented with the choice of killing 20 innocent ones in order to save millions of others by finding a cure for HIV, to call him evil is a bit of a stretch considering he is doing so in order to save lives
that's a funny example, I don't see why a scientists would have no other way to experiment at all than by killing 20 people?? and there is the possibility that he might still not have found the cure after killing those people. so should he keep on killing people until he finds one?
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Ethics and morality usually clash with technological advancements, should we do whatever is necessary for the greater good or should we stay restricted within the borders of "morality" ?
technology which is for the greater good clashes with morality. so morality isn't for the greater good?
it depends on what we call morality of course.
a solution could be to make sure that scientists are truely responsible people who aren't driven by personal interests, but is it possible?
I think a good idea would be to try to give the simplest possible solutions to the current problems, instead of relying only on super advanced technologies. I guess many of them could be solved pretty easily, but some people have a personal interest in preventing that from happening, like in europe where they want to forbid natural cures, so that pharmaceutical labs make more money.
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Smithey
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posted May 24, 2011 02:53 AM |
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No. Nothing "at all costs". "At all costs" means you're willing to sacrifice everything to get one thing, and nothing is worth that much.
Well right now, I would sacrifice almost everything for my life, in the future I'm sure I will feel the same way about my kids lives, there is always something you would sacrifice it all for, just my opinion though....
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Both should be allowed, and neither is unethical. All of the parties agreed and it's not harming anyone who didn't agree, so no one has the right to stop them.
Of course it's unethical, matter of fact it is against the law as well, you can't even buy a kidney from someone, let alone pay him to submitted to an experiment...
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Then these ridiculous hypotheticals will be relevant, but otherwise, can you give an actual relevant example that you're not making up and is an actual current ethical issue?
Considering that besides "medical trials" experimenting on humans is not legal I can't show you an actual example that is going on today, however there were many of those throughout history :
Psychology (little albert, milgram test), Medicine (Mengele, Jap unit 731, various tests USA army conducted on soldiers) and many are still happening but it is not on public record... enough examples ?
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Fauch
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posted May 24, 2011 03:05 AM |
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I think if you have to torture people to make advancements that it is obviously not for the greater good. can a bad mean bring a good result? overall I mean, not from a certain point of view of course.
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Smithey
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posted May 24, 2011 03:10 AM |
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Well I agree that all those mentioned were bad men however scientists indeed used their researches, which btw produced insights on many things, so in a manner of speaking actions of those bad men indeed had an impact on the greater good...
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mvassilev
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posted May 24, 2011 03:14 AM |
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I would sacrifice almost everything for my life
There's a difference between "almost everything" and "everything". If you literally sacrificed everything except your own life, would it be worth it? Probably not.
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Of course it's unethical, matter of fact it is against the law as well, you can't even buy a kidney from someone, let alone pay him to submitted to an experiment...
While it is against the law to buy a kidney, I don't see why it should be considered unethical. If you own your own body, you should be free to give parts of it away. Or think of it this way. It's neither illegal nor unethical to receive money as a gift. It's not illegal or unethical to donate a kidney. But if you combine the two - getting money for donating a kidney - it's suddenly wrong. Doesn't make any sense. Anything that's legal to do for free should be legal to do for money.
But you can pay people to participate in experiments, as long as they're approved by the relevant ethics board. I would go further and say if all parties agree, it's ethical, period.
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Psychology (little albert, milgram test), Medicine (Mengele, Jap unit 731, various tests USA army conducted on soldiers) and many are still happening but it is not on public record... enough examples ?
Everyone in the Milgram experiment was a volunteer. The rest are unambiguously unethical.
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Smithey
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posted May 24, 2011 03:25 AM |
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There's a difference between "almost everything" and "everything". If you literally sacrificed everything except your own life, would it be worth it? Probably not.
Well what's everything ? Would I wipe out Africa for my life ? Yup, so that falls into the at all costs in my book
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While it is against the law to buy a kidney, I don't see why it should be considered unethical. If you own your own body, you should be free to give parts of it away. Or think of it this way. It's neither illegal nor unethical to receive money as a gift. It's not illegal or unethical to donate a kidney. But if you combine the two - getting money for donating a kidney - it's suddenly wrong. Doesn't make any sense. Anything that's legal to do for free should be legal to do for money.
It's unethical because if one person can pay for a kidney and you can't merely because you don't have the means it makes it unethical as seen by standards which apply in our society, The sense if making it illegal is that lives can't be bought with money, somewhat hypocritical but that's the law....
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But you can pay people to participate in experiments, as long as they're approved by the relevant ethics board. I would go further and say if all parties agree, it's ethical, period.
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Everyone in the Milgram experiment was a volunteer. The rest are unambiguously unethical.
volunteer or not, doesn't answer the original question... Many soldiers returned from desert storm sick because of use of chemical/biological weapons all chose to join the army, all experimented on...
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mvassilev
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posted May 24, 2011 03:50 AM |
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Not going to quote war here.
1. Africa isn't "everything". Everything would be the obliteration of all the universe except what is absolutely necessary to keep you alive. That is, you would have food, water, and oxygen, and nothing else - including your senses.
2. "the standards that apply in our society" isn't an argument. Just because we do things one way doesn't mean it's right.
3. People volunteered for the army, not for the experiment. If they volunteer for the experiment, that's fine.
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