Saturday, April 19, 2008

Ethics Research

Michael and I had a difficult time finding an example of ethical lapses and dehumanizing langauge. I had heard something awhile ago about an experiment with shock therapy but I wasn't able to find it. We eventually found an article about testing prisoners in Canada.

The link is here

The article discusses prisoners being used for medical testing. At one point in the article says:

"On March 24, 1949, an electroshock machine arrived at Kingston
Penitentiary, ushering in a new era in the treatment of ``nervous and
mental disorders.'' During an initial session, a monthly report says, ``a
good seizure was obtained'' when 225 volts of electricity surged through
one inmate."
I was shocked by this article, but somewhat surprised that it was so difficult to find a good example of an ethical lapse that included the language. We also kept coming across the same article about a prison experiment at Stanford that was very disturbing. To be completely honest, I didn't really enjoy this assignment because of the disturbing things that we found.



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