WrestlingSmarks Ethics, Morals, and Philosophy Debate Club

[Chris]

I'm not even saying it's always bad to have a hard line all or nothing stance on something, there's clearly subjects where that fits, but when two people actually don't but act like they do bc they are pretty far, it gets frustrating lol

 

[Barry Poppins]

Also fwiw I don't particularly trust American society in general to perform this kind of genetic modifications overall. I guarantee if such a thing was implemented, it would disproportionately affect wealthy, white, upper class citizens all the way up the 1%, while lower class minorities would get nothing without having to pay an exorbitant amount of money they can't afford and with insurance companies denying life-saving aid to these infants.

 

[Barry Poppins]

Which of course would spark fuel for the fire of eugenics again, and we really don't wanna relive that nightmare again

 

[Barry Poppins]

The Ticking Bomb

You have in your custody a terrorist with knowledge about a series of ticking time bombs throughout the city, which when set off, will kill hundreds if not thousands of civilians. He refuses to give any information, no matter how much interrogation is performed on him. You know for sure that he is weak against physical torture.

Is it justifiable to torture this prisoner to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of others?

 

[Butters]

waterboard that bitch

 

[Chris]

In that specific scenario the answer is yes, torture the guy.

I generally hate these tho bc when the situation is simplified with assumptions like "you KNOW he'll talk if tortured" that takes away a major part of the actual debate that would go into the situation if it actually happened and that's "will this torture actually work" which is what would terrorize a normal person's brain that isn't just looking for an excuse to abuse people already

 

[Barry Poppins]

Here's a question for everyone:

Is there any unethical research that in your mind was justifiable or is currently? Is it ever justifiable? At what point does a research project become unethical in general?

 

[Barry Poppins]

Here's a question for everyone:

Is there any unethical research that in your mind was justifiable or is currently? Is it ever justifiable? At what point does a research project become unethical in general?

In case this was missed, thoughts @Chris , @Comrade Khan, @Sky ?

 

[Sky]

I couldn't really think of a specific example

But I'm sure there was a lot of work on infectious disease that involved deliberately exposing people to it. Without that we wouldn't be as safe as we are today

 

[Barry Poppins]

I couldn't really think of a specific example

But I'm sure there was a lot of work on infectious disease that involved deliberately exposing people to it. Without that we wouldn't be as safe as we are today

Yeah I mentioned in the history thread a lot of the reason we know so much about vivisection, infectious diseases, and the effects of burns and frostbite is specifically because of Unit 731, Japanese and Nazi human experimentation.

Plus the US dabbled in unethical science as well with the Tuskegee Syphilis experiments from the 30s to the 70s.

 

[Chris]

I don't think you have to justify atrocious research to reap the benefits of it later without guilt tbh, just don't ignore the history behind it. What's done is done, we should use all info available for future research, this isnt a court of law where knowledge should be deemed inadmissable.

I don't really know my line for what's unethical and ethical research otherwise though, it mostly revolves around my definition of reasonable consent.

 

[Barry Poppins]

Would it be ethical to start a research program in which long-term violent offenders (20+ year sentences) may elect to have questionable human experimentation performed on them in exchange for removing years off their sentence?

 

[Deadd2009]

Probably not cause that then could be looked at as a form of torture.

 

[Chris]

Would it be ethical to start a research program in which long-term violent offenders (20+ year sentences) may elect to have questionable human experimentation performed on them in exchange for removing years off their sentence?

The answer to all of these types of questions is going to be a hard "no" for me always lol And I think most people would feel this way, it's just not worth the trouble to get progress that way, use your intelligence to find another way. A good rule of thumb is that if anything like this were to be done....it would be very much hidden and top secret bc of how unethical most people would view it

It's more dicy when the unethical science has already been done and people wrestle with their morals about using the data. Personally, don't see how that's an issue either bc the damage has been done, you can't take it back, but there's no reason not to better the future with what you've learned.