Is unethical science ever justifiable? For example, incredible understandings in

Question

Is unethical science ever justifiable? For example, incredible understandings in physics, the limits of human physiology, and the explosion of art and science during the Renaissance come from the Manhattan Project and development of the atom bomb, Nazi medical experiments, and arguably defiling human bodies. Was the understanding gained in these fields worth what we would consider today fairly horrific circumstances? Why or why not? What do you think the consequences would have been if these significant studies hadn't been done?

Explanation / Answer

Unethical science never justifiable. Ethics changes from time to time, country to country, person to person. When most people think of ethics (or morals), they think of rules for distinguishing between right and wrong, such as the Golden Rule ("Do unto others as you would have them do unto you"), a code of professional conduct like the Hippocratic Oath ("First of all, do no harm"), a religious creed like the Ten Commandments ("Thou Shalt not kill..."), or a wise aphorisms like the sayings of Confucius. This is the most common way of defining "ethics": norms for conduct that distinguish between acceptable and unacceptable behavior.

So use of science and knowledge to make atomic bomb is acceptable for self defense but using it on innocent peoples is unethical. Human physiology is still under exploration but its totaly in ethics, so if Nazi haven't done medical experiments, we may know things some how later but we know things. In the same way scientist who made atomic bomb knows the power uranium, if he was told to use it in a peaceful way he can also develop some other techniques to use it. There is always a another option which may be harder or longer, but always choose a ethical path in science and keep in mind that do not harm. Make sure your experiments are not harming someone. So testing a bomb in dessert is ethical.

So in the past if those unethical experiments hadn't been done there will be not so much differnce in the level of our scientific knowledge.

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