Camryn Franke

Dr. Katherine Maloney

Theory of knowledge

24 March 2017

What limits should ethics place on social science research?

In recent years, the ethical limits placed on social science research have become more extensive. Today there are many rules that need to be followed when carrying out an experiment. These rules could be seen as both positive and negative. Positive because they protect the rights of living organisms but yet they are also negative as they limit us from advancing our knowledge in very specific areas. For example: the effect that extreme stress can have on a living being. The knowledge gained from this example would be extremely helpful in terms of determining ways to help living beings suffering from stress, however in order to gain this knowledge living beings would have to be put through extreme stress which could be viewed as unethical and harmful. Looking at past research experiments, it is evident that there weren’t always this many rules when it came to experimentation and many of these experiments have been labeled as unethical and cruel yet they made groundbreaking discoveries that still benefit us today and from them, we can also advance this knowledge. It can be seen that some researchers felt the only way to gain new, accurate, beneficial knowledge, was to be unethical. Perhaps they felt that the number of living beings harmed would be a lot less than the number of people or animals that would benefit from the study and so overall it would be a win rather than a loss. Nowadays, our society seems to have a clear understanding of what we should not do in terms of ethics however, it cannot be ignored that in the past, ‘unethical’ research experiments made huge breakthroughs and gained us valuable information. Furthermore, one could question the limits that ethics should place on social science research especially if the findings will be beneficial to society and that by placing caps on research methods, we may not be able to advance our knowledge in the field of human beings. Personally, I feel that hurtful or harmful studies can be done only if permission is given from the test subjects and more importantly I feel that no animal should be used to replace a human and that the organism being tested on should be the organism that researchers are trying to find out about.

Claim:

Ethics should place limits on the use of living beings in research done in the social science field. Nowadays, Animals testing has skyrocketed. Many people argue that animals are not an accurate way of attaining knowledge about humans as they are very different in terms of genetics and therefore it is very unethical to use them as test subjects. Some researchers say that it is a good way as the animal they are using shares 99% of our genetic material but clearly, even that minute difference makes us completely different and therefore there is no reason for us to harm animals for no reason. One may ask what the point is in harming hundreds or even thousands of animals when the results won’t necessarily be enough to help humans because the animal used is not identical to ourselves. Also, many believe that it is greatly unethical to use animals in experimentation because they are living beings too meaning that feel pain just as much as we do and can even die from stress. Most importantly, animals cannot vouch for themselves not to be tested on and so it is not right for us to decide for them. It is not ethical for us to harm animals for the sake of gaining new knowledge, but also it is not ethical to harm humans for the sake of gaining new knowledge. For example, in 1969 there was an experiment conducted on a group of monkeys to determine the effect of addiction and drug use. The monkeys were taught how to inject themselves with harmful drugs such as cocaine and morphine. After learning how to inject themselves, the monkeys were supplied with large quantities of such drugs. The harmful effect of the drugs could be seen clearly. Some of the monkeys that were heavily dosing themselves showed disturbing symptoms, were experiencing strong hallucinations and even broke and tore their limbs while attempting to escape. Within two weeks, all the monkeys had died from an overdose. (Listverse, 2017) This experiment was conducted in order to better understand the effects of drugs, however, the way in which it was conducted can be viewed as unethical and unnecessary to put such animals through pain when there were other ways of collecting such information. They simply could have taken actual drug addicts and monitored them.

Counter claim:

Ethics should not place limits on the use of living beings in research in the social science field. In order to be able to accurately understand how we are programmed and the living beings around us, sometimes it is necessary to carry out unpleasant experiments to obtain knowledge that will help many people. For example, in 1939 a research experiment was conducted on a group of orphaned children in Iowa to determine if labeling someone, could impact their speech. Twenty-two orphaned children were split into two groups: an experimental group and a controlled group. Prior to the experiment some of these children were normal speakers, while others were already stutterers. Both normal speakers and stutterers were placed in each group. 11 children received praise for their ability to articulate and the good way in which they spoke, while the other 11 were told that their speech was not of the correct standard and that they were stutterers. The outcome: some of the normal speaking children that received negative comments, developed speech difficulties. The children who were stutterers to begin with and received the negative comments became progressively worse. Neither the orphanage, nor the children were told the true intent of the experiment. This experiment is now known as the monster study as it was unethical. (Listverse, 2017) However, the lack of ethical limits was the reason why it was so successful in answering the research question and because of this study, we know the negative impacts of labelling and perhaps we might have never acquired if this experiment wasn’t done. It is important that we test on living beings

Conclusion:

Nowadays, certain American associations, dealing with ethics in psychology experiments, have become stricter and have listed many rules that experimenters must respect. These rules ensure that no humans are harmed at all, however the rules regarding animal testing are not so prominent. Testing on living beings is ultimately unethical and should limit research in the social sciences however I feel that it is important to test on living beings in order to obtain valuable and helpful knowledge as long as animals aren’t being supplemented for humans.

 Works cited:

"Top 10 Unethical Psychological Experiments - Listverse". Listverse. N. p., 2008. Web. 16 Mar. 2017