| | In a sense, we experiment on others (or ourselves) all the time, testing reality, asking questions and gauging responses. Home Depot is perfect example because they tout the knowledge of their clerks, so I might ask one an easy question before actually asking the one I need answered. I might do that in a men's clothing store. I know the answer, but what will this young man or woman say when I ask the difference between two suits. So, there is that.
My question really revolves around "social science" experiments such as Milgram or the Stanford Prison Experiment. Less controversial are the many seemingly mild inquiries into human behavior, such as those by Stanley Schachter on "affliation." (Carried out at the University of Minnesota, this engaging array of experiments was designed to see under what conditions people would seek each other's company. Hunger was one variable, for instance.)
In every documented and attested case, if there is any apparent ethical problem, an ethics committee must approve the experiment. However, you will see that these ethicians allow quite a lot. It is perfectly acceptable to lie to people, to manipulate them, to abuse them, if you explain to them afterward that this was all just an experiment. Not limited to college students, deception is practiced on young children, and of course, on older adults as in the case of the Milgram Experiments.
My problems begin at the surface. How can it be said that deception -- and the admission of deception -- has no negative results? To me, before you could morally allow deception, you would have to establish by experiment or poll over a cohort or longitudinal study that deception had to negative consequences. Take, say 10,000 college freshmen, lie to them shamelessly about basic facts and operant theories -- green sweaters prevent headcolds; employers hire men in wingtips over men in cordovans; Methodists are happiest marrying Lutherans; etc. etc. -- then, five years later, reveal to them the fact that they were duped -- then 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 years later see if their life chances and outcomes proved different than a control group. You can see the ethical problems... Yet, this is an honest experiment compared to many others that were carried out.
On a deeper level, I ask about the morality of those who do these experiments. We here are not surprised to discover that these experiments are the work of social "scientists" (so-called) who subscribe to a full range of philosophical errors from metaphysics through ethics. Many are admitted and avowed Marxists, "conflict theorists" and post modernists.
I point out that Stanley Milgram and Philip Zimbardo went to high school together. I submit that their experiments were only a long-delayed and socially-approved "Columbine attack" on other people. Moreover, I point out that Zimbardo called off his experiment only after he was brought to his senses by his graduate assistant whom he was dating at the time, a clear ethical lapse. (Yes, it goes on all time. So does retail fraud. What's your point?) Philip Zimbardo, Stanley Milgran, Stanley Schachter and others who experiment on humans are sociopaths who have found "acceptable" outlets for their actions.
I believe that the way these experiments are routinely accepted in the social "sciences" also reveals the inherent inhumanity of the "humanitarians." The Milgram Experiment found significant numbers of uncooperative subjects. No follow-up was done. People who cannot be ruled or tricked are less interesting. They are discounted. In such experiments, the focus is always on those who can be manipulated in the ways imagined or intended by the researcher. These tests never turn up useful truths about non-conformists and independent thinkers. Such people apparently have no use.
Medical experiments routinely use double-blind tests with placebos to determine the effectiveness of treatments. If this is moral, under what circumstances, would that be true? Is it fair to call a subject a "volunteer" if they truly are kept from knowing exactly what they are volunteering for?
(Edited by Michael E. Marotta on 11/02, 4:48pm)
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