The position taken by Edison was completely unethical because of the assumptions made upon his misinformation. Testing performed on animals involved no rigorous scientific method to guarantee pure data (or close to) and no autopsy to confirm and explain the cause of death from electric treatement. Basing the voltage and current to kill a man, off the assumption that what kills a “healthy” horse must kill a man. I say “healthy” because again, nothing was confirmed with his testing. To continue to judge a man and submit him to an untested procedure which is supposedly instant and painless despite his willingness to accept the previous form of capital punishment is more or less wrong. Making everything worse is the lack of “ethics” in the courtroom. Despite experience and training the judge allowed himself to become biased, and accepted the words of “The Wizard”, who only assumed it was safe, against that of an established lawyer, who proved that this method of execution was unproven and should not be used. Edison was not the only one at fault, but that he would use his prestige and abandon ideals he once followed to secure business in the future is a perfect display of immorality.
November 19, 2008 at 2:40 pm |
You made a good point on who should take the fall for the lack of ethics. I agree that Edison is completely unethical, but should the courtroom people also be called unethical for blindly believing a person of a very high creditability?
November 19, 2008 at 3:34 pm |
Your theis statement is very vague and general. Try to be specific. What assumptions are you refering to? How was Edison misinformed? Can you provide examples of Edison being misinformed and the unethical assumptions that resulted.
I think what you’re trying to say is that Edison’s position was unethical because it isn’t founded on sound scientific research and but instead he throws together evidence to save his business. Try to come up with a thesis along these lines.
Remmber to be specific and avoid vague generalizations.