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Of course. Debilitating a few dozen people is nothing compared to the harm caused by cancer and heart disease, and if we had a choice between the two it would b

Of course. Debilitating a few dozen people is nothing compared to the harm caused by cancer and heart disease, and if we had a choice between the two it would be wrong to pick the greater evil. Is the premise of the question that choosing inaction adverts culpability, in a situation where either outcome is abhorrent? But inaction has only the appearance of innocence: if you really have the choice of which outcome will occur, you cannot absolve yourself of responsibility by going with a default. The fact that the greater evil is the status quo doesn't make it a more ethical choice.

k-mcgrady 12y ago
>> "Of course. Debilitating a few dozen people is nothing compared to the harm caused by cancer and heart disease, and if we had a choice between the two it would be wrong to pick the greater evil." You say that like it's fact but it's your opinion based on your ethics. There's also information we don't know. Are these people volunteering or being selected against their will? Either way it would also be fine to argue that the rights of those people are so important that society can't debilitate them even if it solves cancer and heart disease. Everybody has to die of something so why ruin these peoples lives when the people saved by not getting heart disease/cancer die from something else anyway?
- pwr22 12y ago
  From the standpoint of maximising human survival it is the right call
vegedor 12y ago
>if we had a choice between the two it would be wrong to pick the greater evil. No, you can't compare the two because the evil is completely different. It's not really my opinion, but a common ethical standpoint that is laid out in the Human Rights, i.e. life is invaluable. IMHO that says nothing about voluntary test subjects. Anyhow, volunteering in good faith of unclear conditions hardly qualifies as exercise of free will, e.g. if anything but the outcome of the test itself is the reward. If the target of the test is vaguely described, not only the result was the reward, but also knowing what was tested to begin with. Therefore it could not be a freely willing decision. For example and just to put things in perspective: Cancer and heart diseases might be prevented other ways (choosing a healthy life-style?); Aging 120 or 60 is not a sufficient basis to value the content of life.

k-mcgrady 12y ago

>> "Of course. Debilitating a few dozen people is nothing compared to the harm caused by cancer and heart disease, and if we had a choice between the two it would be wrong to pick the greater evil." You say that like it's fact but it's your opinion based on your ethics. There's also information we don't know. Are these people volunteering or being selected against their will? Either way it would also be fine to argue that the rights of those people are so important that society can't debilitate them even if it solves cancer and heart disease. Everybody has to die of something so why ruin these peoples lives when the people saved by not getting heart disease/cancer die from something else anyway?

pwr22 12y ago
From the standpoint of maximising human survival it is the right call

vegedor 12y ago

>if we had a choice between the two it would be wrong to pick the greater evil. No, you can't compare the two because the evil is completely different. It's not really my opinion, but a common ethical standpoint that is laid out in the Human Rights, i.e. life is invaluable. IMHO that says nothing about voluntary test subjects. Anyhow, volunteering in good faith of unclear conditions hardly qualifies as exercise of free will, e.g. if anything but the outcome of the test itself is the reward. If the target of the test is vaguely described, not only the result was the reward, but also knowing what was tested to begin with. Therefore it could not be a freely willing decision. For example and just to put things in perspective: Cancer and heart diseases might be prevented other ways (choosing a healthy life-style?); Aging 120 or 60 is not a sufficient basis to value the content of life.