Good Ethics Can Sometimes Mean Better Science: Research Ethics and the Milgram Experiments

All agree that if the Milgram experiments were proposed today they would never receive approval from a research ethics board. However, the results of the Milgram experiments are widely cited across a broad range of academic literature from psychology to moral philosophy. While interpretations of the experiments vary, few commentators, especially philosophers, have expressed doubts about the basic soundness of the results. What I argue in this paper is that this general approach to the experiments might be in error. I will show that the ethical problems that would prevent the experiments from being approved today actually have an effect on the results such that the experiments might show less than many currently suppose. Making this case demonstrates two conclusions. The first is that there are good reasons to think that the conclusions of many of Milgram’s commentators might be too strong. The second conclusion is a more general one. The ethics procedures commonly used by North American research ethics boards serve not only to protect human participants in research but also can sometimes help secure, to an extent, the integrity of results. In other words, good ethics can sometimes mean better science.

A Moderate Defence of the Use of Thought Experiments in Applied Ethics

Thought experiments have played a pivotal role in many debates within ethics—and in particular within applied ethics—over the past 30 years. Nonetheless, despite their having become a commonly used philosophical tool, there is something odd about the extensive reliance upon thought experiments in areas of philosophy, such as applied ethics, that are so obviously oriented towards practical life. Herein I provide a moderate defence of their use in applied philosophy against those three objections. I do not defend all possible uses of thought experiments but suggest that we should distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate uses. Their legitimate uses are determined not so much by the modal content of any actual thought experiment itself, but by the extent to which the argument in which it is nested follows basic tenets of informal logic and respects the fundamental contingency of applied ethical problems. In pursuing these ideas, I do not so much provide a set of criteria for their legitimate use, but more modestly present two significant ways in which their use can go awry.     

Polish Research Ethics Committees in the European Union System of Assessing Medical Experiments

The Polish equivalents of Research Ethics Committees are Bioethics Committees (BCs). A questionnaire study has been undertaken to determine their situation. The BC is usually comprised of 13 members. Nine of these are doctors and four are non-doctors. In 2006 BCs assessed an average of 27.3 ± 31.7 (range: 0–131) projects of clinical trials and 71.1 ± 139.8 (range: 0–638) projects of other types of medical research. During one BC meeting an average of 10.3 ± 14.7 (range: 0–71) projects of medical research were assessed (2006). The amendment of Polish laws according with Directive 2001/20/EC caused a percentage increase in BCs which assessed less than 20 projects per year (16% vs. 33% or 42% in 2003 vs. 2005 or 2006 respectively, p < 0,05). The results confirm the usefulness of the current practice of creating BCs by medical universities, medical institutes and regional chambers of physicians and dentists but rationalization of the workload for individual BCs is necessary.

Virtue Ethics and Confucian Ethics

This essay focuses on the unity of several virtues in pre-Qin Confucians. Confucius maintains the proper application and coherence of such virtues as benevolence, wisdom, trustworthiness, straightforwardness, courage, and firmness. Further, Confucius takes benevolence and nobility as characteristic of human being. Particular attention is paid to the distinction and relationship between virtuous characters and virtuous actions.     

Ethics and Intuitions

For millennia, philosophers have speculated about the origins of ethics. Recent research in evolutionary psychology and the neurosciences has shed light on that question. But this research also has normative significance. A standard way of arguing against a normative ethical theory is to show that in some circumstances the theory leads to judgments that are contrary to our common moral intuitions. If, however, these moral intuitions are the biological residue of our evolutionary history, it is not clear why we should regard them as having any normative force. Research in the neurosciences should therefore lead us to reconsider the role of intuitions in normative ethics.     

Ethics and Sex

Book Information Ethics and Sex. By Igor Primoratz. Routledge. London/New York. 1999. Pp. xi + 205. Paperback, £14.99.     

Ecclesiology and Ethics

The author elaborates on the relation between tradition and the concept of 'invention' within doctrinal theory. Based on examinations of how this is reflected upon in selected doctrinal theories (Alister E. McGrath, Wolfhart Pannenberg and Oswald Bayer), the author discusses 'invention' in relation to adjacent theological issues. Diverging issues seem to be whether invention should be reserved for the object of theology (Bayer), or whether invention should be the task of systematic theology, especially in relation to the constant generation of new experiences (McGrath and Pannenberg). The author also asserts that the doctrinal theory of Bayer is inventive, even though not intended to be so. Thus, the question is how to work inventively within systematic theology, not whether to do so.