Is it right to use the results of torture in medical science.
 

Okay so say we had some reseach done by some very nasty people who used very nasty methods. Is it right to use that research, if it can help future medical science.

Assuming ofcourse such use wouldnt encourage futher torture.

depends what that research discovered.

well, let's imagine for a second that the Nazis had found the cure to cancer. Im not advocating thier methods... but should we just let millions of more people die? IMHO, use the damn cure!

exactly - medical science uses some techniques that would made many people uncomfortable - I don't think that's ever stopped anyone taking a pill.

The answer is already out there, and the answer is currently, and always has been yes.

I'd say if it didn't encourage further torture then definately. Why not? The torture has already been done - you can't change that. It just wouldn't make sense not to use it.

What about if you wasnt sure wether the results obtained from torture would lead directly to a cure/discovery? If you were a government who possessed these documents, would it be right to release them to anyone that asks?

Now that covers something that crosses the border between philosophy and politics.

Have you an example in mind? If it wasn't obvious whether the research would have led to a discovery, the chances are that it wasn't very good research. No harm in distributing information, as long as it is done with tact, to the right people.

I wouldn't want to be tortured for nothing!

I'd rather not get tortured at all thanks very much. The knowledge that the result of that torture helped some scientists really wouldn't make me feel a whole lot better about the experience.

Of course it is acceptable.
The damage has already been done, and nothing can change that. Choosing to ignore some valuable research that has already been done is just plain obstinate.

Yes. They use this sort of "existing situation" research all the time, when a true experiment conducted by the scientist would be unethical. For example, they've studied extreme social isolation in children by observing feral children, and the experiments carried out on Jews by Nazi scientists during the WWII period were immensely helpful in fields such as aeronautics and medical science.

At least from these bad situations, some good can come.

Hmm, so far the people here have been talking about 2 different situations:

1. Research has already been done, should it be used.

2. Condoning research of this nature.

IMO, you can't change the past, but there is no reason to NOT use the information gained. However, the ends do NOT justify the means, so anyone who is involved in the research or who stands to directly gain from the research should be prosecuted to the furthest extent of the harshest law.

Let me put it this way: How would you have felt to be the guinea pig?

I believe that the research might as well be used since it already exists. I don't necessarily support the torture of people for medical research, but it would do more to honor the victims by using the information to benefit mankind than destroy it and add salt to an already open wound.

Was it wrong to take the WWII-era Japanese human vivisection experiment results and research them in order to better understand our bodies as long as we did not allow these experiments to continue? Of course, we hired a bunch of thier scientists to work alongside Nazis after teh war, but that's another subject.

Is it wrong to study the religion of ancient Incas, Mayans, Aztecs, etc. because the religions focused on human sacrifice and what modern humans would consider self-mutilation?

If people were tortured and a huge advance was made because of it, it was not right to torture those people, but refusing to use the technological advance is an insult to them. If I'm going to die in an unpleasant way, I'll be pissed if someone thinks that the inhumane treatment while I'm alive is a reason to not use it. It's adding insult to injury. I'd also want those responsible to be punsihed so that the development would not set a precedent for human torture in medical procedures.

it'd be rude not ot

Yes. At least that way you can give their pain and death some sort of meaning. Each life saved by their pain is an honor to what they gave up.

Do you have any links to further information on that subject? In the past I've wondered if anything good came out of that horror, and it was the first thing that came to my mind when I read the thread title.

Here's a link to some stuff. Too much to post.

http://www.brainyencyclopedia.com/en...mentation.html

Nazis weren't the only ones.

Tuskegee Experiments

Tuskegee Experiments 2

Use the research for the advancement of science and medicine, but never allow unethical experiments such as the above.

A good list, but that only shows the horrors that they did, not if anyone has utilized the results of the tests for something positive.

Kantian ethics suggest this is wrong. The reason being his whole catagorical imperative. But I won't get into that in too much detail.

Consider this scenario:

10 people have cancer, 1 bum on the street holds the cure. Imagine killing bum to save the 10 people. Sounds great, right? well, not according to Kant. He suggests that those 10 people who were saved would, by proxy, be murders too. Their life depends on the murder of the bum. Murdering is wrong, ergo, one should not murder the bum, even for 10 lives.

Kant believed in the concept of a priori universal Truths (something that has been put to death, surely). I am not doing him justice, however. But in this case, Kant seems to have a pretty solid idea.

Heck yes, if I was tortured I'd not want to die/be tortured in vain!

If it won't encourage any further torture, then let the torturees have died for something good that benefits everyone else. But torture IS bad...

Yes. Obviously, I wouldn't advocate torture as a means for collecting medical data, but if a rogue state or scientist does and gains valuable knowledge it would be a waste to ignore it.

It would seem obvious that torture is bad. But I have to agree with alot of people here. It would seem to me to be the worst decision anyone could make to remain willfully ignorent in any situation. While most don't support torture, not to use knowledge for positive outcomes, regardless of the way that knowledge was aquired, is insane. Proliferating that method of aquisition would be wrong. While the ends do not justify the means, this is ex post facto.

not quoting anyone, just stating my opinion:

it is not right, obviously, to torture in order to gain results or to essentially prod another to torture in order to gain the results. torture is very bad and should be prevented if at all possible.

it is right, however, to use the results of torture if the torture has already happened and was not preventable. mengele and others were going to torture those people for their own gain no matter what. i think it is wrong to ignore the results they obtained because the people are dead and tortured no matter what, ignoring the results will have condemned the people to a death even more devoid of purpose than it already is.

No knowledge in and of itself is good or bad. The act committed to obtain the knowledge may be despicable or worse. However, the knowledge obtained is separate from the act to obtain it. The usefulness of the knowledge is not in any way connected to the act. Thus, if the knowledge could be used for benefit, why should that not be the case? Now, all that said, it is still not generally acceptable to torture people.

I understand the point of this thread and the most obvious example would be the Nazi experiments during WWII.

I believe it has been shown thru repeated studies that the data obtained in these studies is not scientifically stringent (i.e. has not been peer reviewed, etc....).

Based on the above premise I would have to say that the data obtained thru torture is not valid and could perhaps lead to more misery.

It would be wrong to have it and not use it. Not using isn't going to reverse the fact that torture occured. The results should be used but the researchers guilty of torture should be prosecuted and all research halted.

what do you mean by torture
i've stuck needles in mice before and they squirm and squeak

when i read the title, i had the same answer as most everybody else who posted here, why not use it? the information is the same no matter how it was collected

No, obviously. If you have ethical standards on how you obtain information and you use information obtained through unethical methods then you are condoning and participating in those unethical methods. The ends do not justify the means. Ethical standards are just as important as any other scientific standard or method. No knowledge exists in a vacuum. To use this knowledge would create more problems than it might solve.

Concentration camp "experiments" were not ethical therefore they were not scientific.

A lack of ethics doesn't make something unscientific.

If the data is useful, than i think ethically we are obligated to use it. This does not imply support for torture.

I'm sorry, but you're dead wrong about this and I encourage you to do some research. All science must satisfy both the ethics of topics and findings (morality), and the ethics of method and process (integrity). Concentration camp "experiments" rarely met the standard of integrity and never met the standard of morality therefore they cannot be considered scientific.

I guess i was using the "of or employing the scientific method" as my definition of scientific. I don't make the distinction between morality. Science is science, regardless of the morality of the experiments. Scientific integrity is different than ethical or moral integrity. Or maybe i should say, useful data can be culled from experiments, even though the experiments themselves lacked morality. I wasn't considering data integrity or accuracy to be a matter of ethics, at least not the same kind of ethics we consider when discussing torture.

What makes you think that the scientific method doesn't include ethical standards? Data culled from unethical sources is irrevocably flawed and would be a faulty starting point to continue any scientific endevour. If the subject is being maliciously harmed in the process of experimentation how could you possibly hope to gain useful information?

I don't follow. How is data culled from unethical sources irrevocably flawed? Let's use animal testing as an example. Obviously, many people feel animal testing, even for potentially life saving medical procedures, is unethical. Despite this fact, valuable scientific information is gleaned from the arguably(but not by me) unethical practice of animal testing every day. The fact that the experiment doesn't pass the ethical smell test for some people doesn't render the resulting data flawed or useless.

Nothing in your hypothetical "animal testing" example fits the criteria of malicious harm. I'm even fine with experiments with humans that result in grievous bodily harm and even death if the experiment is conducted ethically. Doctors who study medicines for terminal illnesses often knowingly give their patients a placebo instead of anything that might cure them. The difference is that those patients give their consent and know that the medicine they receive might be a sugar pill. If their consent is a result of coersion then the experiment is unethical and therefore unvalid.

Of course ethical standards are a highly charged political subject, but they must be in place in order to gather scientific data. Some ethical standards come from our laws, but the vast majority comes from the scientific community itself. Scientists decide the validity of others' scientific work, this applies to all methodology including ethics.

My point is that 2+2, no matter how malicious the addition, will always be 4. If i want to test the conductivity of the human body on unwilling participants and i do so carefully, i will end up with accurate data on the conductivity of the human body, despite the fact that my participants were unwilling and i acted with malice.

Ideally, i would never use torture as a means of scientificall examining the world. But i don't think that data resulting from experiments involving torture are necessrily flawed.

Do you really feel there is any professor at M.I.T. who, with enough torture, won't tell you that 2+2=5?

I see what you're saying, but poorly designed experiments aren't relevant.

everybody likes hotdogs, but just doesnt want to know where it comes from. cept the damn vegies.

In the area of psychology there were many experiments conducted that currently would not be allowed, caused mental anguish to the participants, but are still considered valid and referenced today.

I personally think science should be divorced from morality of any kind, and worry only about results. Obviously, data needs be accurate and if behaving in a moral fashion is the best way to obtain valid information that should be used, but if that's not possible I don't think information gained from "immoral" practices should be disregarded if it's accurate.

Those involved and guilty of conducting a study involving torture should be prosecuted and punished severely. Future attempts should be discouraged through the threat of prosecution and punishment.

Refusing to utilize possessed knowledge to end someone's suffering is as unethical as inflicting suffering upon someone in order to gain that knowledge.

I was really hoping someone would talk about the Genie experiment. Let me break it down for you thusly:
1. A girl, born retarded, is kept chained to a potty chair for 12 years, not allowed to talk, fed through a hole in the door, rarely cleaned, and never spoken to. She is beaten for making any noise at all.
2. A concerned neighbor (finally) alerts the authorities, and the father, facing extreme charges of child abuse and negligence, commits suicide, and the mother blames it all on the now dead father.
3. "Genie," who had never actually been named, was adopted by a group of linguistic scientists and tested to see whether she could learn to speak (She couldn't even make noise).
4. In the end, she still is unable to speak (she's in her late 20's/early 30's now), but we know now that speech cannot be learned at or beyond puberty "Critical Period Theory"
I would posit that this was valid scientific use of torture results. You can rephrase the question to exclude this, as science was not the malicious factor in this case.

I agree with filtherton wholeheartedly. Being a biologist myself, I find it easy to see how insights gained by unethical research preactices could be scientifically valid. I think the issue Locobot is raising concerns more of a general unethicality rather than a specific one. Let me elaborate...

I believe filtherton is trying to say that research that is unethical in its treatment of the subject, yet still adheres closely to the accepted standards of the scientific method and other defining, relevant scientific practices is still accurate in its findings.

I believe Locobot is questioning the integrity of the individuals who will carry out wuch research, implying that if they are willing to torture their subjects, it is also likely that they are willing to lie about their findings.

Did I get that correct, fellas?

...and Locobot, torturing a scientist to make him say what you want is not science; It is a biased for of interrogation at best, and therefore does not apply to the current discussion as far as I can tell.

I hope I managed to clear some things up.

C4 Diesel, you truly are king of kings. :)

Why thank you. I try my best. :thumbsup:

This might be off topic but an idea that can fit nonetheless.

This might not classify as torture but I believe that criminals that are held in prison for life without parole or are on death row can not and should not be considered a human being. Just wait before I am labeled.

One must have done something rather heinous to be incarcerated for life or to death: either serial rape, murder, etc. So you have taken away the rights of another human being--and I argue that it is only fitting that those rights should be forfeited from the convicted. And I know the Constitution, no cuel and unusual punishment. I don't believe in protecting the rights of someone that confesses to inhuman crimes, and shows no remorse for these acts.

Bam! Now all the prisoners that are on death row can be used for medical/scientific experiments or organ harvesting--whatever we need. I find it infuriating that my tax dollars are going to feed, to care, to clothe, to cater the lowest scum of the country. I dont know about you, but who has more right to live: Prisoner A who raped and killed 8 women without mercy, or Patient A, age 10, who needs a new kidney.

Think about that. It is required by the courts that a person cannot be executed if he or she is either mentally or physically unsound. So it is then our money, sports fans, that pays to nurse them back to health just so we can kill them. I say use them. And I would be willing to submit to such rules of life and end there of. If I were convicted of heinous acts, sentenced to death or life without parole, I'd rather have some part of me benefit someone else--slightly atone to the crimes I've committed.

I figure some good can be found in the usage of human degradation. Then cases of wrongful imprisonment come in.

Read George Orwell's 1984. In it it doesn't matter what is said... as long as you agree with it. I figure, if the research has been done, despite the immoral means it was obtained, it should be used. But I would not use torture to further research, except on people who have forfeited their rights as a human being.