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Contents/Introduction
Part 1. Values and Value Judgments
Part 2. Ethical Requirements on Action
Part 3. Moral Character and Responsibility
Part 4. Privacy, Confidentiality, Intellectual Property and the Law
Fine Points
Notes
Part 2. Ethical Requirements on Action
- Moral Rights
- Moral Obligations, Moral Rules and MoralStanding
1. Moral Rights
Along with the concepts of benefit and harm, one of concepts most commonly used indiscussions of ethics is that of a moral right. A right is a justified claim,entitlement or assertion of what a rights-holder is due. For a person to have themoral right to have, get, or do something, there must be a moral basis orjustification for the claim. These bases or justifications are different fordifferent categories of rights. We shall see that "human rights" is a namegiven to those rights that all people have because they are people. Rights possessedby only by some are called "special rights." For example, if I havepromised that I will drive our car pool in February, then you have a moral right tobe driven by me in February. Being driven by me in February is a specialright you have. Special rights may be acquired through agreements or contracts,or through (chosen or unchosen) relationships--for example, "parentalrights." In this section we will examine four major contrasts in thecategorization of rights: alienable vs. inalienable rights; human rights vs. specialrights; negative rights or liberties, vs. positive rights; and absolute rights vs.prima facie rights.Moral rights, along with moral obligations and moral responsibilities, constrain howfar a person may go in seeking to improve an outcome. For example, suppose you findyourself in some sort of emergency where you can act to save one person's life or tosave four (other) people's lives. (Other things being equal) you ought to save thefour people, rather than one. However, the greater value of four lives as comparedwith one would not allow you to violate another's right to life in order to save fourothers. Thus it would not be morally permissible to kill one person in order toharvest that person's organs and transplant them into four people who each need oneof the organs to survive. In contrast, although both human life and great art havevalue, art does not have moral rights. Therefore, it would be justified to destroyone great painting to save four others--for example, by using the first to wrap theother four.
People talk about legal rights as well as moral rights. Although an effort isoften made to bring the force of law behind some moral right by making it a legalright, moral rights must be distinguished from legal rights. There is nocontradiction in saying that a person has a legal right to do something but not amoral right to do it, or in claiming that some laws are unjust. Laws that treatedenslaved people as property violated the moral rights of those who were slaves. Theargument given to justify slavery in the United States was that the Constitutionguaranteed rights only to citizens. The law did not recognize slaves to be citizensand so did not accord them civil rights, that is, the legal rights ofcitizens. Furthermore, the law regarded slaves as the property of others. TheFourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provided that former slaves arecitizens and all citizens possess the right to life, liberty and property (althoughonly men had the right to vote) and that naturalized citizens have the same rights asnative-born Americans. The same year, 1868, the Burlingame Treaty was signed. Itdenied the possibility of naturalized citizenship to Chinese-Americans, although itpermitted free immigration between China and the U.S. In 1882 Congress passed theChinese Exclusion Act, the first federal law preventing immigration to the U.S. of aspecific ethnic group, and it was not repealed until 1943. A Constitutionalamendment to accord voting rights to women was passed in 1920. The Civil Rights Actsof 1964-65 legislated against all forms of discrimination based on race, sex,religion and national origins.
The term "human rights" is one that Eleanor Roosevelt brought intowidespread use. Previously these rights were called the "rights of man"(or sometimes, "natural rights"). She chose "human" as amore inclusive modifier. There is now international and cross-cultural agreementthat all people have some rights simply because they are people. Notice that is not"because they are human." Being human is neither necessary nor sufficientto capture the sense of what characteristics qualify one for "humanrights." A culture of human tissue would be both alive and human, but not anperson and no one would claim it has human rights. This is a topic we will revisitlater in this introduction when we consider the moral standing of various types ofcreatures.
The view that there are human rights gained wide acceptance in the eighteenth-centuryEnlightenment. It strongly influenced the U.S. Declaration of Independence, theframing of the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. The term "right" (andthe corresponding terms in other languages) dates only from the seventeenth century. Engineers and scientists confront issues of human rights directly when they face therequirement to obtain the informed consent of any person who is to be an experimentalsubject in their research. Human subjects are used in some biomedical research andin product testing. For example, in testing a biomedical device each subject isinformed not only of the risks and his right to refuse to participate, but also ofhis right to withdraw from the study at a later point.
The thoroughness with which subjects in biomedical experiments are informed of theirrights due to the stringent requirements on experimental use of human subjects atinstitutions that receive government support for experiments involving humansubjects. In Chapter 8 we shall discuss a case that dramatically illustrates theabsence of such constraints when product testing is done in industry. Theconsideration of human rights is necessary for any discussion of professional ethics,because the international recognition of human rights provides an important exampleof a standard for ethical behavior that transcends cultural differences and hasworldwide agreement. Human rights are implicitly considered in formulating responsesto a broad range of problems. Among those problems are the ethical problems thatarise for engineers in technologically developed democracies that are the focus ofthis book. The notions of a moral rule, and that of virtue, whichwill be discussed in the following sections, have been explicitly used in a largerrange of cultures than has the notion of a right. Virtually every ethical and majorreligious tradition employs some counterpart of the notions of virtue and moral rule. Traditions vary on the content of moral rules, of course and on the characterizationof particular virtues, and on the relative importance of one moral virtue as comparedwith others.
Discussion of rights has a particular prominence in comparatively individualisticsocieties, such as the United States.
The United States in the late twentieth century is sometimes described as a"culture of rights" as contrasted with Japan, which is sometimes describedas a "culture of duties." However, when people and groups representing aspectrum of political and religious opinion seek to formulate basic moralrequirements that apply in a variety of cultural contexts, as in the United Nations,they frequently formulate these moral requirements in terms of human rights. Therefore, notions of rights and human rights are broadly used today even though thenotion of rights arose only in the seventeenth century in relatively individualisticsocieties.
In a pluralistic society with many different subcultures, people may agree morereadily on what each person is due rather than on what each person owes others. Forexample, suppose that in one culture certain tasks of child rearing are duties of thefather and in another similar tasks are duties of the mother or of the maternaluncle. Members of different cultures may disagree on the moral duties of fathers,mothers, and maternal uncles, but still be able to agree that a child should receivesuch care.
Philosopher Annette Baier points out that people make claims and give moraljustifications for them in every human group with any social organization. Thereforethere are claims with moral justification in every society. Since rights arejustified claims, then there is an equivalent of the notion of a right in everysociety, even in those that do not have a ready term for justified claims. Culturesthat see basic moral considerations in terms of responsibilities, virtues,obligations and duties have the equivalent of moral rights, because the moralrequirements they do recognize provide moral justification for certain claims ofindividuals. The Declaration of Independence clearly rests on the assumption thathuman rights exist: all persons are created equal, for all are endowed with certain"inalienable rights." In the strongest sense, to say that a right isinalienable means that it cannot be taken away by others, traded away by theperson, or forfeited as a result of the person's actions. In a weaker sense, itmeans that the right cannot be taken or traded away, but it could be forfeitedthrough the person's actions. In the United States a convicted felon forfeits theright to vote, for example, although it is seen as wrong for others to deprive aperson of the right to vote and any trading away of the right to vote is seen asmorally invalid. In the weakest sense, to say that a right is inalienable means onlythat others are not justified in removing or abrogating that right. Thomas Jeffersonand the framers of the Declaration of Independence regarded such criminal punishmentsas imprisonment and executions just, even though these involve the forfeiture ofliberty or life.
Today, many people interpret the rights mentioned in the Declaration of Independenceas inalienable in the sense that one cannot trade them away. Today the inalienableright to liberty is generally agreed to mean that a person cannot make a morallyvalid agreement to sell himself into slavery. In view of the widespreadseventeenth-century practice of making agreements to be an "indenturedservant," it is not so clear that the framers of the Declaration thoughtinalienable rights could not be traded away, at least temporarily. In this book theterm "inalienable" will be used to describe a right that others cannot takeaway and that one cannot trade, but that can be forfeited.
Rights that may be removed are called alienable. You may give up yourownership of a car by selling it, for example. This possibility illustrates that aproperty right, unlike the right to liberty, is alienable. Furthermore, the generalright to property, which forbids that one's property be taken without compensation,may be lost if the property obtained as a result of illegal activity.
Rights need not be exercised, even if they are inalienable. One may fail to exercisea right for many reasons, including just not getting around to it. For example, ifyou obtain the special legal right to drive, by getting a driver's license, you maydecide that you do not want to do any driving, in which case you will not exercisethat right. If one acts to voluntarily give up the claim, one is said towaive the right. You may have the right of way but yield to someone else(waive your right to proceed first). The question of whether one waives a rightusually arises when the exercise of that right comes into conflict with somethingelse--in this example someone else's desire or need to proceed first.
From an ethical point of view, it is crucial for professionals to distinguishclients, patients and students who wish to waive or choose not to exercisesome right--perhaps the right to some further information--from those who do notrealize that they have the right in question, or who do not know how to go aboutexercising the right.
To waive a right, a person must be aware of the right and choose not to exercise it. In some cases others, usually practicing professionals, have an ethical obligation toinform people of their rights. Situations that are unfamiliar to most people or thatthey do not enter willingly, such as being a patient, being under arrest, or beingaccused of some wrongdoing, are ones in which people are likely to be ignorant oftheir rights.
When in addition to having a right to do something, a person is morallyrequired to do that thing because of a role assumed or an agreement, we saythe person has an ethical obligation or duty as well as a right to dothe thing in question. An ethical duty or obligation is a moral requirement tofollow a certain course of action, that is, to do, or refrain from doing, certainthings. For example, according to many engineering codes of ethics, engineers havea moral right to raise issues of wrongdoing outside their organizations, but theyalso have an obligation to do so when public health and safety are atstake.
Recall what makes some claim a moral right: When there is moraljustification for some claim, then that person has a moral right. From thisdefinition we see that for a person to have some moral right all that is necessary isthat the person's claim be morally justified.
A person's claim (usually) continues to be morally justified even if that personchooses to waive the right in some circ*mstances. The decision to waive a right insome circ*mstances does not mean that one waives it in others. For example, in theUnited States students have a legal right to see records concerning theirperformance. A student may waive the right to see a particular letter of reference,but the general right remains in force and may be exercised with respect to othermaterial. However, certain rights, such as the legal right to keep others off yourland, are forfeited if you do not exercise the right for a given period.
Consider whether a right that is inalienable would always have to be exercised. Thata right is inalienable means that the person's claim is always justified, but notthat the claim must always be pressed. That is, the right does not have to beexercised by the person who has the right, even if it is inalienable.
Sometimes rights conflict with one another or with other types of moralconsiderations. In order to understand how to make a moral assessment of such asituation, we must be able to make other distinctions among rights.
A term that is often confused with "inalienable" is "absolute." An absolute right is a right whose claim can never be outweighed by othermoral considerations. The right not to be tortured is widely regarded as an exampleof an absolute right. This means that no circ*mstances ethically justify torturingperson.
In contrast to absolute rights, rights whose claims may be outweighed by moralconsiderations are called prima facie rights--from the Latin, "at firstface." Most rights are prima facie rights. For example, the right to travelfreely, the right to own a piece of real estate, the right to drive, the right to beserved next (when one has stood in line) are all rights that can be justly overriddenunder certain circ*mstances. Of course the circ*mstances that would qualify can becommon for one sort of prima facie right, but be rare in others. To say that a rightis prima facie rather than absolute is to say that there might be otherconsiderations that outweigh the right in a given case. When the claim of some rightis not met, it is common to say that the claim (and the right) is infringed. For example, if A refuses to turn over B's car keys to B because B is too drunk todrive or is under the influence of medications that severely impair his drivingability, B's right to drive has been infringed. If a moral wrong is done ininfringing a right (i.e., if there are not adequate moral reasons for infringing theright), it is said to be violated. If A refuses to turn over B's car keyssimply because A is in an unpleasant mood, A has violated B's right to the use of hisproperty.
An inalienable right need not be an absolute right, because to say that a personhas a right which is inalienable only means that there is always moral justificationfor that person's claim. This does not mean that there couldn't be an even greatermoral justification for overriding that claim in some particular situation. Considerthe right to travel freely; we regard this as a basic liberty and an inalienableright, but it is only a prima facie right. If people are carrying a dangerous andhighly contagious disease, we believe that there is justification for temporarilyoverriding their right to travel freely and putting them under quarantine. Thisexample illustrates the point that in the case of some rights, justice may be bestserved by overriding (though not disregarding) people's claims.
The same point is illustrated by the fact that we regard it as just for people to befined or imprisoned in some cases, notwithstanding their inalienable right to libertyand to property. No court could justly take away their right to own property,however, or deny them all liberty by making them slaves, even if they were imprisonedfor life. Justice also requires that the amount of the fine and the extent ofimprisonment or probation must be in proportion to their offense.
Most rights are prima facie rather than absolute. However, the right of a(competent) person to refuse medical treatment is another example of a right that isusually regarded as absolute.
It is important to distinguish between different categories of rights, in order tounderstand whether a moral wrong has occurred when the claim of some right is notfulfilled.
There is another important distinction between types of rights that cuts across theother distinctions considered so far. On the one hand, some rights require of othersonly that they not interfere with or restrict the rights-holder. These are callednegative rights or liberties. On the other hand, there are positiverights, which are claims to receive something. To respect another's negativeright requires only that you not interfere with the person's exercise of the right inquestion, and not that you provide her with particular opportunities to practice thisright. Examples of these negative rights include a person's rights to free speechand to religious expression. In the case of positive rights, it is not enough toleave the rights holder alone; something must be done for her. Usually some goods orservices must be supplied.
Obligations may be negative or positive in the sense just explained forrights. If you pay for the future delivery of an automobile, you have a positiveright to the automobile and the seller has a positive obligation to turn it over toyou. Your right to life, on the other hand, is a negative right, that is, everyoneelse must refrain from killing you--a negative obligation. It does not impose onothers any positive obligation to save your life. Obligations will be discussed atgreater length in Parts 3 and 4.
It is commonly held that all people have a right to certain basic necessities, andthus a society that is able to provide them is obliged to do so. Such rights arecalled economic rights, as contrasted with political rights, and arepositive human rights. Political rights include physical liberty, or the right totravel freely; freedom of association; and freedom of speech. These examples, whichare all freedoms or liberties, suggest that political rights are negativerights--that is, they require only that others not interfere with the rights holder'sactivities. However, some political rights, such as the right to vote, require thatthe services, in this case those that ensure privacy and accurate tallying of thevote, be provided.
Positive rights to health care and to education are often held to be basic humanrights. The nature and extent of a right to health care is now widely discussed inthe United States. Many people also claim that everyone has the right to a basiceducation, and indeed public education in the United States is legally mandated forall. Recent legislation affirms the right of people with disabilities to aneducation in the least restrictive environment possible. This change illustrates howviews of the scope of such rights continue to evolve.
The four rights that were taken to be principle human rights at the end of theeighteenth century--the rights of life, liberty, "the pursuit ofhappiness," and property ownership--were taken tobe liberties, not positiverights. Other people generally were regarded as being morally prohibited frominterfering with the continuance of another's life, exercise of liberty, pursuit ofhappiness, or retention of property. They were not morally obligated to save otherpeople's lives, ensure their liberty, promote their happiness, or provide them withproperty.
In summary, consider what is at issue in the contrast between:
1.Alienable and inalienable rights;
2.Human rights and special rights;
3.Negative rights or liberties, and positive rights;
4.Absolute rights and prima facie rights.
The first contrast deals with whether or by what means (e.g., only by forfeiture) theright may be removed from the person; the second with whether the right belongs toall people; the third with whether the claim of the right is to receive something orjust to be left alone; and the fourth with whether it can ever be just (morallyacceptable) to override the claims of that right.
2. Moral Obligations, Moral Rules and Moral Standing
The concepts of moral obligation and moral rule have some importantcharacteristics in common with the concept of a moral right. Moral rights andobligations and most moral rules specify what one is morally permitted, forbidden, orrequired to do without consideration of the consequences of the action--except in sofar as these consequences are part of the characterization of the acts themselves;killing, for example, is an act that results in death.Obligations and rules, like rights, may have an institutional or legal basis ratherthan an ethical one. For example, at many colleges there is a rule that makes it aninstitutional obligation of all students to see their advisor on or beforeRegistration Day. Students in some universities but not others have a right to, aninstitutional guarantee of, on housing on campus. In contrast people generally havea moral/ethical obligation to keep their promises. Because rights, obligationsand moral rules all concern taking action, they are related notions. Thus, moralconstraint on action can be expressed in the language of rights or obligations, aswell as that of moral rules. For example, if people have a moral right to refusemedical treatment, then a corresponding moral rule prohibits treating people againsttheir will. Therefore, health care providers all have a professional moralobligation not to perform medical interventions on people without their permission. Moral rights and obligations are subject to further classification, as we sawearlier. For example, rights may be classified as either absolute or prima facie,depending on whether the claims they embody always override other considerations inthe case of absolute rights or whether the claims can be overridden by weightierrights and considerations in the case of prima facie rights. In Part 3, we will takeup the notion of moral responsibility and see that it is a more complex notion thanthat of moral rights, moral obligations and moral rules.
A moral obligation or duty is a course of action that is morally required. Obligations arise from many sources--from one's promises, agreements and contracts,and from one's relationships, debts of gratitude, and roles. Many roles are notchosen, so a person typically has obligations, such as the obligation of a citizen,or that of a son or a daughter, which are not the result of choices. Ofcourse, one does take on professional roles in part from choice and consequently hascertain obligations by choice--the obligations of a nurse, an engineer, or a husband,for instance.
Often one party's right is matched by an obligation on the part of another party whostands in a particular relation to the first. Rights and obligations havecounterpart moral rules. For example, corresponding to the patient's right to refusetreatment and the provider's obligation not to treat a patient without his informedconsent is the rule "Do not treat a patient without that patient's informedconsent." An engineer's obligation to keep a client's privileged informationconfidential corresponds to the rule that appears in the codes of ethics of manyengineering societies: to keep confidential a client's or employer's businessmatters. Recall the earlier definition of negative and positive rights. Would theobligation not to disclose a client's privileged information be a negative ora positive obligation?
As stated, it would count as a negative obligation, because commonly it would requireonly refraining from acts of disclosure. In many circ*mstances, however, one wouldactually have to take special precautions to avoid disclosing a client's confidentialinformation--as when one might have to shield a part of a new model from public view. In this case the obligation would require positive action and so would have thecharacteristics of a positive obligation. This example illustrates some of thejudgments that must be made in applying ethical concepts.
Rules of ethical conduct specify the acts or course of action that arerequired or forbidden. In this book I will follow the common practice of using"moral rule" or "rule of ethical conduct" narrowly and apply itonly where there is a rather precise specification of the acts or courses of actionthat are forbidden, permitted or required. For example, a manuscript submitted forpublication should be one that has not been previously published, except for versionswritten for very different audiences. General exhortations such as "Behonest" or "Treat every person as an end and not as a means," might becalled moral rules in a broad sense of "moral rules," but they are sogeneral that they are commonly called basic considerations or "ethicalprinciples" and that is how I shall refer to them here. To summarize: amoral rule has a specific form, an ethical principle is a general moralconsideration. Therefore, the terms "moral rule" and "ethicalprinciple" may apply to the same ethical consideration. For example, peopleoften speak of "the principle of informed consent" by which they mean themoral rule that before subjecting someone to experimentation or hazardous treatmentone should give them full information about what one proposes to do together with anyassociated risks and obtain the person's consent. This rule has become such a basicelement in so many moral discussions (at least in technologically developeddemocracies) that it is termed a "principle." Although any givenobligation has a corresponding moral rule, not all obligations or moral rules havecorresponding rights. There are moral rules that apply to the behavior of moralagents toward beings who, although their welfare must be considered, are not the sortof beings that have rights. (This point will be discussed in this section inconnection with "moral standing.")
It is often held that moral obligations and moral rules apply to the treatment ofhuman corpses and to non-human animals. Considering these claims clarifies how torecognize moral obligations and moral rules in the absence of corresponding rights. Consider the treatment of human corpses. Some religions hold that the treatment ofcorpses affects the person whose body it was, but most people recognize the moralrule that they ought to treat human corpses with respect even if they do subscribe tosuch a belief. (Just what behavior is held to be respectful varies with the culture. For example, autopsies are regarded as disrespectful in some cultures.) A variety ofreasons are given for believing that people should treat corpse with respect. Onevery common one is that if we fail to treat human corpses with respect, we are likelyto become callous toward living people. Another, more common in previous times, isthat a person may be mistaken for dead.
The question of moral constraint on the treatment of human corpses was discussed withpractical application to product development a few years ago when it was decided toresume using human cadavers in auto safety test crashes. Treatment of corpses isalso of practical importance in setting practices of teaching hospitals, whichsometimes allow student physicians to practice medical procedures on corpses beforerigor mortis sets in. This practice affords prospective doctors the opportunity toincrease their proficiency before they apply medical procedures to living patients. Laws requiring the consent of the family for any procedures done to the corpse, arecommon and reflect the repugnance with which most people in the U.S. view theinstrumental use of corpses. However, this legal restraint is commonly circumventedby the ploy of delay in pronouncing the patient dead. The broad ascription of rightsto beings who do not make reflective choices has become widespread in the UnitedStates in the last few decades along with heightened concern about the welfarenon-human animals. However, whether someone ascribes rights to non-human animalsdoes not fully determine the person's view about how such animals ought, ethicallyspeaking, to be treated. In practice, there is only a very general tendency forthose who hold that animals have rights, to think that animals should be treated muchas we treat persons. Many who are reluctant to ascribe rights to non-human animals dorecognize obligations of people toward them. As already mentioned, a moralprohibition on cruelty to animals is widely recognized and is backed by some laws.
Since the strictness with which one uses the term "rights" does not settlequestions regarding the obligations of moral agents toward beings who are not moralagents, more must be said.
The question of the moral limits on experimentation with animals is of particularimportance for science. Some scientists burn and maim animals in order to devisetreatments for burned and maimed people. Furthermore, because anesthesia andanalgesics would interfere with some of these experiments, the animals are not givenanything for their pain. Just because these acts are called experiments does notmean that they should not be viewed as acts of cruelty. So we must ask whether weshould view these acts as cruel; whether such cruelty constitutes a violation ofmoral rules or obligations toward animals; and whether this violation can bejustified.
What considerations are relevant to determining whether it is morally justifiable todo experimentation with animals? The first consideration is what happens to theanimal--whether it is disabled, killed or caused pain. Beyond that, it depends onwhether the obligation not to cause animals severe pain when their own welfare is notpromoted is an absolute or only a prima facie obligation. If it is prima facie,justification would depend on the relative strength of the countervailingconsiderations those that count toward taking actions that would cause the pain forexample, benefit brought to people through some action that would cause pain to theanimal.
Many who do wish to ascribe rights to non-human animals contend that their well-beingis important in itself, not just because their well-being contributes to thewell-being of humans. When the welfare of some creature must be considered for itsown sake, it is said to have moral standing. To say that some group of beingshave moral standing does not decide the question of whether they have the samemoral standing as people and thus have "human" rights, but only that thewelfare of such beings must be considered for its own sake. The welfare ofsuch beings might be considered simply because it benefited some people, but thatwould not require that they be accorded moral standing.
The history of ethical thought shows that those in power have often recognized themoral claims only of others similar to themselves. The human rights of many peoplehave been ignored because of their race, class, or gender. That behavior is nowdescribed as racism, classism or sexism, understood as unwarranted preferentialtreatment of the race, class or gender in power. If one claims that humans are theonly group with moral standing, this looks suspiciously like a new unwarranted bias,a bias in favor of the human species--what Peter Singer has called"speciesism." In order to show that the claim of moral standing (orabsence of moral standing) of members of other species is more than an arbitraryexercise of prejudice on the part of humankind one must show that distinctions inmoral standing are based on morally relevant features of the beings in question. Another way of expressing the view that a being has moral standing is to say that its well-being (or some aspects of it) is of value in itself, and not merely a meansto other desirable ends.
Using Animals in Medical ExperimentsThose who claim that non-humans have moral standing and those who say that animalshave rights often agree on what they believe is morally required in the treatment ofanimals. Both groups tend to disagree with people who are concerned about thetreatment of non-human animals only if (and to the extent that) humans areaffected by that treatment. However, even those who are concerned about thetreatment of non-human animals only to the extent that such treatment has an effecton human well-being may object to cruelty toward non-human animals on the groundsthat cruelty is a moral vice and that the moral corruption of people should beopposed. Therefore, denying moral standing to non-human animals does not therebycommit one to the view that "anything goes" with regard to theirtreatment.Suppose that certain experiments are thought to be needed to develop better means ofcoping with extreme pain in humans. These experiments would involve performing avariety of procedures that would be very painful to the experimental subjects. Thesubjects would have to be vertebrates. There is some expectation that species, suchas primates, that are closer to humans according to evolutionary biology, might givemore meaningful results, but it is not known exactly how much like humans in thisrespect are the candidate laboratory animals. Because the information about neuralresponse would be crucial, no pain medication would be given. The subjects would betemporarily paralyzed to keep them from flailing about.
What, if any, species would it be ethically acceptable to use in such experiments? Is it morally relevant whether the subjects are mammals? Would intelligence bemorally relevant to the decision, and if so, how? Would the presence or absence of acomplex social system in which members care for other members of the species be amorally relevant factor to consider? Would it be morally relevant that one candidatespecies had a more humans face than another? Would it be relevant that someparticular individuals had once been human pets? If so, would it be better or worseto use those individuals?
As Robert Proctor points out, the Nazis were stanch defenders of the view that it waswrong to victimize healthy specimens of other species by using them for scientificexperiments and that it was morally preferable to use as subjects"defective" humans (1). Thisexample illustrates the point that cruelty to one group can easily coexist and evenseek justification in compassion toward another.
Contents/IntroductionPart 1. Values and Value Judgments
Part 2. Ethical Requirements on Action
Part 3. Moral Character and Responsibility
Part 4. Privacy, Confidentiality, Intellectual Property and the Law
Fine Points
Notes© Whitbeck 1995[email protected]
