Ethics Case

Ethics

All of us in Team C believe that ethics have changed with time and are a very important part of experimentation. All living beings whether they are animals or humans have rights to be treated humanely. In the following we will summarize our discussion on the role that ethics play in experimentation, some ethical issues associated with John B. Watson's conditioning of phobic responses, and if ethics be involved when experimenting on criminals.

Ethics have grown tremendously since the times of John Watson. With the story of "Little Albert" the team saw no evidence that Watson deliberately put Albert in harm. "Although they gave the impression that they wished they could have had more time with Albert, it is clear that they knew of his forthcoming departure a month ahead of time and chose to test the persistence of the fear rather than to attempt its reversal." (Goodwin, pg. 348). After a short period the effects of the experiment were already fading. Without reinforcements the learned behavior will stop. William pointed out that even though we can't see the residual effects of what Watson did to little Albert we can say with some certainty that he did not have a phobia for the rest of his life of hairy things.

Ethics play a huge role in experimentation on both animals and humans. In Canada, where they do not have a formal structure in place to regulate human experimentation, a board such as the Research Ethics Board (REB) had to be formed to work with other national entities such as civil law, regulatory Colleges etc. to protect their test subjects from unethical treatment. Consequences for not following the ethical requirements when performing human experiments set forth by the REB can be steep and include loss of funding, suspension of license, or criminal charges. (Tremayne-Lloyd & Srbrolow, 2007)

Just like how Canada and many other countries have regulations behind human experimentation, many countries also have regulations on the treatment of animals during experimentation. In many countries licenses must be acquired to perform experiments on humans or animals and ethical evaluations need to be performed where the researcher must clearly define the purpose behind the experiments, both which take time and money to complete (Ghasemi & Dehpour, 2009). Also, researchers must prove that the experiments as well as the living quarters of the animals are humane and well kept.

Many people feel that ethical treatment of animals is not important, if the benefits provided can greatly impact the human race. Great things have come from using animals to experiment on, but at what cost. Many of these experiments are extremely painful for the animal and can cause serious distress in their lives.

It has been said that it is especially important to have ethical issues when working in a prison setting ( Overholser,1897). Working with criminals