Threats to the common good biochemical weapons and human subjects research

Hastings Center Report

Volumn 33, Issue 5, 2003, Pages 17-25

  London, Alex John ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

CHEMICAL WARFARE AGENT;

ARTICLE; BIOLOGICAL WARFARE; BIOMEDICAL AND BEHAVIORAL RESEARCH; ETHICS; HUMAN; HUMAN EXPERIMENT; MEDICAL RESEARCH; SOCIAL JUSTICE; UNITED STATES; WAR AND HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES;

BIOMEDICAL AND BEHAVIORAL RESEARCH; WAR AND HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES;

BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH; BIOTERRORISM; CHEMICAL WARFARE AGENTS; HUMAN EXPERIMENTATION; HUMANS; SOCIAL JUSTICE; UNITED STATES;

EID: 1542468788     PISSN: 00930334     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/3528632     Document Type: Review

References (31)

1. RJ. Krickus, "On the Morality of Chemical/Biological War," The Journal of Conflict Resolution 9, no. 2 (1965): 200-210.
2. J.M. Schofer, "Violations of Informed Consent During War," JAMA 281 (1999): 1657;
3. E.G. Howe and E.D. Martin, "Treating the Troops," Hastings Center Report 21, no. 2 (1991): 21-24;
4. G.J. Annas and MA Grodin, "Commentary," Hastings Center Report 21, no. 2 (1991): 24-27;
5. R.J. Levine, "Commentary," Hastings Center Report 21, no. 2 (1991): 27-29.
6. J. Dao and J. Miller, "Pentagon Shifts Anthrax Vaccine to Civilian Uses," New York Times, 29 June 29 2002.
7. The United States General Accounting Office, "Smallpox Vaccination: Implementation of National Program Faces Challenges" (Washington, D.C.: The United States General Accounting Office, 30 April2003). "Update: Adverse Events Following Smallpox Vaccination-United States 2003," JAMA 289 (2003): 2060-63;
8. L.K Altman, "Smallpox Proposal Raises Ethical Issues," New York Times, 22 June 2002.
9. W.J. Broad and J. Miller, "Report Provides New Details of Soviet Smallpox Accident," New York Times 15 June 2002.
10. MX. Cummings, "Anthrax and the Military," The Nation 275, no. 1 (2002): 24.
11. J.D. Moreno, "Bioethics after the Terror," American Journal of Bioethics 2, no. 1 (2002): 60-64.
12. H. Jonas, "Philosophical Reflections on Experimenting with Human Subjects," Daedalus 98, no. 2 (1969): 219-47, at 221.
13. Ibid., 228.
14. Ibid., 229.
15. See B. Woodward, "Challenges to Human Subject Protections in U.S. Medical Research," JAMA 24 (1999):1947-1952.
16. I suggested earlier that arguments about the common good are not determined by comprehensive moral and political theories. Here, I have been trying to show that while there can be disagreements over strict and lenient interpretations of the triggering condition and these positions can easily be associated with different comprehensive moral and political theories, both interpretations presume tacit acceptance of the corporate conception of the common good.
17. To his credit, Jonas raises this issue ("Philosophical Reflections on Experimenting with Human Subjects," 221) against what I am calling the corporate conception. It is therefore appropriate to read Jonas's argument as dialectical in nature. That is, he is claiming that even if we assume the corporate conception of the common good we can still provide a sturdy foundation for informed consent for most peace time circumstances.
18. When goals or ends conflict, an integrative solution is one that modifies those goals and ends so as to satisfy the underlying legitimate interests that provide the rationale or motivation behind those goals or ends. See J.Z. Rubin, D.G. Pruitt, S.H. Kim, Social Conflict: Escalation, Stalemate, and Settlement, second edition (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1994), 168-95.
19. C. Taylor, "Atomism," in Powers, Possessions and Freedom, ed. A. Kontos (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1979), 39-61.
20. J. Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971), 19, 504-510.
21. See S. Freeman, "Deliberative Democracy: A Sympathetic Comment," Philosophy and Public Affairs 29, no. 4 (2000): 371-418.
22. This conception of the common good may be overlooked or dismissed because its formulations are easily confused with the corporate conception. Classical utilitarianism resembles the corporate conception because it identifies the good with a subjective mental state, such as pleasure, and then evaluates states of affairs in terms of the social aggregate of that good. A basic objection to classical utilitarianism is that its focus on aggregate utility makes it insensi-tive to questions concerning distribution of welfare between individuals. In principle, if persecuting a minority yields a higher aggregate utility than equal treatment, then the persecution is justifiable. As Rawls puts it, classical utilitarianism treats the political community as a single entity, thereby focusing moral and political deliberation on how best to maximize the overall well-being of this corporate individual (Rawls, A Theory of Justice, 22-33.). Thus it appears to target the corporate conception of the common good.
23. Some versions of utilitarianism attempt to avoid this pitfall. David Brink's "objective utilitarianism" is intended to provide a contrast with subjective theories that reduce human welfare to mental states such as pleasure. Brink proposes a non-reductive, naturalistic account of human welfare whose primary components include the reflective pursuit and realization by agents of reasonable life projects and the development of personal and social relationships of mutual concern and commitment (D.O. Brink, Moral Realism and the Foundations of Ethics (New York.: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 230-45, 262-90).
24. Brink argues that his account is distribution-sensitive because basic goods such as health, nutrition, and education, are either necessary conditions for the existence of value, or they are all-purpose means that enable individuals to pursue a wide range of individual life plans (272), and, claims Brink, this definition of welfare does not permit trade offs between access to basic goods for increases in social utility (D.O. Brink, "Mill's Deliberative Utilitarianism," Philosophy and Public Affairs 21, no. 1 (1992): 67-103).
25. This is a generic interests conception of the common good, in the sense that it defines the common good in terms of a set of interests that members of the community share and have reason to promote both in their own case and with respect to every other member of the community as well.
26. A. Sen, Development as Freedom (New York: Anchor Books, 1999);
27. M.C. Nuss-baum, Women and Human Development (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000).
28. For a convenient summary of traditional constraints, see E.J. Emanuel, D. Wendler, and C. Grady, "What Makes Clinical Research Ethical?" JAMA 283 (2000): 2701-710.
29. E.S. Anderson, "What Is the Point of Equality?" Ethics 109 (1999): 287-337.
30. A. Pollack and W.J. Broad, "Anti-Terror Drugs Get Test Shortcut," New York Times 31 May 2002.
31. M.E. Frisina, "The Offensive-Defensive Distinction in Military Biological Research," Hastings Center Report 20, no. 3 (1990): 19-22.