Many people marvel at the role that scientific research has played in advancing the understanding of the human condition. However, several noteworthy research studies have highlighted the ethical dilemmas in scientific research studies. Though these research studies promoted human understanding, it violated the rights of its human subjects because it led to physical and psychological harm. Laud Humphreys’ “Tearoom Trade” research in homosexual men is a good example. The study was done in the 1960s, which was the time when homosexuality was considered a form of mental illness, and the objective of the study was to determine if this was true. The researcher found the most the men identified as heterosexual in public, were married, some had children, and belonged to the middle class. Though his study advanced knowledge on homosexuality, it caused psychological harm to the subjects because their privacy was violated. If this research was to be conducted not, it would not be permitted by Institutional Review Boards. The other notable study is the Zimbardo prisons study that sought to understand what happens in prisons. Using a fake prison in a basement of Stanford University, Zimbardo recruited 12 graduate students to act as prison guards and 12 to be prisoners. After six days, the subjects were so absorbed into their roles that they had lost their identities.
The Milligram Study is the other experiments that showed the extreme lengths that people would go to obey authority. The research participants were subjected to extreme psychological pressure during the study because they thought they were shocking the leaners. The Tuskegee syphilis study that was carried out between 1932 and 1972 in Tuskegee Alabama highlighted breach of ethics in pursuit of knowledge. It is perhaps a study that shows how greed for research rants can blind researchers to the ethical dilemmas they face. In the study, 400 African-American men were denied treatment despite the fact that the cure for syphilis was discovered in the 1940s. The subjects were denied treatment so that the researchers could continue with their research and obtain grants. The men were exposed to the debilitating effects of the disease, while their spouses and children were also exposed to the disease. The four studies increased our knowledge, but at a great cost to the research subjects. The subjects were denied their right to choose, and the conditions were cruel and dangerous.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Thought advancing scientific knowledge may be important; I believe that there are no cases where the acquisition of scientific knowledge would override ethical considerations. If scientific knowledge is allowed to override ethical considerations, the needs of the majority would dwarf those of the minority, which is ethically wrong. By denying the few the right to choose, a research study becomes unethical. The right to choose is fundamental to ethical research studies (Love, 2012). This tight must be respected at all times. Studies that force people to do things against their will are ethically wrong regardless of the benefits to humanity. Forcing people to take part in studies that can lead to physical or psychological harm that denies them their right to self-determination. As highlighted in the four studies, the subjects’ right to choose were not respected. Additionally, there were no code of ethics to guide acceptable and unacceptable conduct during the research studies. Therefore, a person right to choose should be respected, and if this right is denied, the research becomes unethical irrespective of its benefits to humanity.
Reference
Love, K. (2012). Ethics in social research . Bingley, UK: Emerald.
