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QUESTION
Read Aaron Ridley’s article “Ill-Gotten Gains: On the Use of Results from Unethical Experiments in Medicine” (Public Affairs Quarterly 9, no. 3 [July 1995]). Ridley examines the question of whether to make use of beneficial results that were obtained unethically from medical experiments performed on human beings. While many would probably say that such benefits should not be withheld, Ridley suggests it would be inappropriate to make use of such results. Given his article, address the following questions:
1. In your own words, explain Ridley’s argument based on utilitarianism and the Ideal Experimenter. According to Ridley, how might the Ideal Experimenter effectively be persuaded to conform to non-utilitarian standards of experimental practices?
2. In the end, do you think Ridley’s argument succeeds? Suppose some researchers performed experiments on children in which many of them suffered and died, but in the process, the researchers obtained information that could wipe out cancer. Should they use that information?
3. Ridley presents two reasons for not using the results of unethical experiments that he believes are not effective: respect and condoning. Why does he think these fail? Do you agree with him? If not, give an example in which you think an appeal to respect or condoning would be successful in arguing against the use of such results.
ANSWER
Introduction
In the article, there was an application of practical theory in that the individual addressed issues regarding the medication of a young girl who was undergoing some treatment in one of the medical institution centers. In the view of the content that the individual presented, it is clear that there was description of the ethical factors within medical fields. Ridley examines the question of whether to make use of beneficial results that were obtained unethically from medical experiments performed on human beings. This is one how individual made use of practical theory during his argument[1]. As the discussion continued, the individual ended up depicting some issues regarding ideal experimenter that there was a need to conform to all the non-standardized values to align with the practice standards.
The above was done effectively by making sure that the discussion was geared towards the improvement of the experimental procedures that were being used in the medical testing. The individual mainly related the issue to the ideas that had been used by the other philosophers in defining the meaning of the ethical issues in the practical theory. Through the above action, it is clear that the individual tried to make the non-utilitarian theory standards to conform to the ethical standards of the experimental practices. At the end of the process, the argument of the Ridley’s ended up being successful as most of the innovative methods end up changing and following the desired practices that are highly required[2]. Taking a case whereby there is a test that is being performed on the children who have cancer and some of them dying, the application of the information that is addressed in the article is very suitable.
The information mainly is used to enable the researchers to come up with the suitable form of information that would, in turn, work out to solve the problems that are associated with the risks in line with disorder. The individual ended up addressing issues regarding non-ethical application of aspects in the experiment. This was attached to various reason that made the author ascertain the information and message that was being passed[3]. One of the reasons was that the application of non-ethical aspects in the experimental testing was that the data that was being collected could not be sufficient enough as well as useful enough to solve the associated challenges. The data collected is always bias and cannot bring out the appropriate solution for the underlying difficulties. However, the individual did not succeed in offering the disadvantages that are associated with the application of unethical measures in experimentally.
The reason behind such was that there was no any touchable proof that the application would have adverse effect on the results that were to be obtained. Also, the individual also made use of the unethical practices in the experiment that he performed as a way of demonstrating such. The above application made the individual fail in affirming the importance of not applying dishonesty measures in the experimental processes as well as practices. Based on the discussion above, it is clear that the text that Ridley presented was in full of irony as most of the methods and arguments ended up contradicting each other. The contradiction ended up bring a state of confusion between the readers though to some extend most of the information ended up being useful in various sectors.
Therefore, the unethical experiment even though they yield better result are quiet controversial. Ridley asserts that both respect and condoning of the experiment will fail since they do not affirm the importance of applying honesty measures in the process of experimentation. I totally agree with Ridley, because acceptance of immoral behavior in the society and lack of respect for human life despite the end result should be discouraged.
Bibliography
[1] Mitchell, S., S. H. Ridley, R. M. Sancho, and M. Norton. “The future of dementia risk reduction research: barriers and solutions.” Journal of Public Health 39, no. 4 (2017): e275-e281.https://doi.org/10.1093/pubmed/fdx165
[2] Hunt, Kathleen E., Charles J. Innis, Adam E. Kennedy, Kerry L. McNally, Deborah G. Davis, Elizabeth A. Burgess, and Constance Merigo. “Assessment of ground transportation stress in juvenile Kemp’s ridley sea turtles (Lepidochelys kempii).” Conservation physiology 4, no. 1 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1093/conphys/cow042
[3] Davies, Heather S., Prabha Singh, Tanja Deckert-Gaudig, Volker Deckert, Karine Rousseau, Caroline E. Ridley, Sarah E. Dowd et al. “Secondary structure and glycosylation of mucus glycoproteins by Raman spectroscopies.” Analytical chemistry 88, no. 23 (2016): 11609-11615. https://doi.org/10.1021%2Facs.analchem.6b03095
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