The Nuremberg Trials-Tuskegee Study

The Milgram Experiment violates three of the five principles outlined in the Five General Principles of Ethics. Milgram wanted to see if there was a connection between “the conflict between obedience to authority and personal conscience” (McLeod, 2007). Milgram’s hypothesis that he based his experiment on was “How the German people could permit the extermination of the Jews?” (Dan Chalenor, 2012). The first one that Milgram’s experiment violated was “Principle A: Beneficence and Nonmaleficence” which is where “psychologists strive to benefit those with whom they work and take care to do no harm” (Ethical principles, 2013, p. 3, para. 3). The second principle that was violated was “Principle B: Fidelity and Responsibility” which is where

Stanley Milgram’s obedience study is known as the most famous study ever conducted. Milgram, a psychologist at Yale University, conducted an experiment that focused on the conflict between personal conscience and compliance to command. This experiment was conducted in 1961, a year following the court case of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem. Milgram formulated the study to answer the question “Could it be that Eichmann and his million accomplices in the Holocaust were just following orders? Could we call them all accomplices?” (Milgram, 1974). The investigation was to see whether Germans were specially obedient, under the circumstances, to dominant figures. This was a frequently said explanation for the Nazi killings in World War II.

The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment remains one of the most egregious breaches of ethical conduct in medical research history. Initiated in 1932 by the U.S. Public Health Service, this study aimed to trace the natural progression of untreated syphilis in African American men under the guise of receiving free healthcare from the federal government. Situated within the broader context of a segregated American South, where systemic racism and socio-economic oppression were pervasive, the Tuskegee experiment exploited the vulnerabilities of its participants, who were predominantly poor and lacked access to medical care. The promise of free medical examinations, meals, and burial insurance lured many into a study that would later be condemned for its profound moral failings. As the experiment unfolded over four decades, it withheld life-saving treatment from its subjects even after penicillin became the standard cure for syphilis in 1947, leading to unnecessary suffering and deaths.

In conclusion The Tuskegee Syphilis study had left individuals in the science field with unkind memories of how doctors neglected the oath they took to save lives, how the government also neglected their oath because of the color of someone’s skin and the value assigned to their lives in the name of science. For forty years they continued to experiment with human lives as a mere means to an end. The Tuskegee Study was inhumane, horrendous and broke so many basic ethical principles but the most important consequences. The study has forced the medical/science field to construct several scientific codes that no medical/ science individuals or company should ever break. These codes which came from several ethical principles were derived are also

In 1932, Macon county Alabama, the United States Public Health system along side of the Tuskegee Institute and finances from the Rosenwald fund created an epidemiologic study in which they would study the effects of syphilis in the African American male. This infamous study became known country and worldwide when the truth about the study was revealed proving the men in this study had been deceived into believing why the study was truly taking place and what this meant for many of the men and the families involved. After this study it was clear that there was a severe amount of racial discrimination among the medical field in the area, which would then lead to the distrust of African Americans and their physicians.

The Nazi Doctors of World War 2 had to face the Doctors’ Trial in Nuremberg, Germany after the war. The reason for the trial is because the Doctors in the Nazi Party had contributed or played a part in genocide while following Hitler. Adolph Hitler was the German politician and leader of the Nazi Party during the years from (1933-1945.) The doctors had performed unreasonable medical experimentations on reluctant concentration camp prisoners.

The two experiments were a tested at different time periods and for different purposes. For instance, the Milgram experiment was originally tested to study obedience to authority, in response to Adolf Eichmann trial, a Nazi war criminal, that stated he,” was just stating orders under the Reich.” The experiment proved to be that under authority rule, actions, even if morally wrong and unethical can be still taken forward with due to a strict authority presence.

Milgram wanted to know if the solders that were involved in the tragic Holocaust willingly were a part of slaughtering more than six million people in the concentration camps. Were the solders psychopaths, or were they just doing as they were told? Werhane also informed that the experiment took place at Yale University in 1960 that consisted of three participants, one was said to be the teacher, the second was the experimenter, and the third was the learner. Although it appeared to the teacher that the roles were assigned by drawing lots, the roles were pre-determined. The teacher was told that the experiment was to help understand the effect of punishment on

During the experiment, if the teacher said that they did not wish to continue, the experimenter encouraged them to go on. He said that it was vital that they proceed until the test was over. Baumrind brings up a good point by suggesting that Milgram’s comparison of SS men in Nazi Germany to the teacher is faulty. Although they both instructed their “teachers” on what to do and made it seem as though the victims deserved what they were getting, the SS men would not have perceived their authority figures as benign researchers in a lab. The SS men were led to believe that their victims were unimportant not even worthy of consideration. She alleges this by saying, “He did not need to feel guilt or conflict because within his frame of reference he was acting rightly” (Baumrind 228), which describes how the SS men felt while torturing their victims.

Stanley Milgram conducted one of the most controversial psychological experiments of all time: the Milgram Experiment. Milgram was born in a New York hospital to parents that immigrated from Germany. The Holocaust sparked his interest for most of his young life because as he stated, he should have been born into a “German-speaking Jewish community” and “died in a gas chamber.” Milgram soon realized that the only way the “inhumane policies” of the Holocaust could occur, was if a large amount of people “obeyed orders” (Romm, 2015). This influenced the hypothesis of the experiment. How much pain would someone be willing to inflict on another just because an authority figure urged them to do so? The experiment involved a teacher who would ask questions to a concealed learner and a shock system. If the learner answered incorrectly, he would receive a shock. Milgram conducted the experiment many times over the course of 2 years, but the most well-known trial included 65% of participants who were willing to continue until they reached the fatal shock of 450 volts (Romm, 2015). The results of his experiment were so shocking that many people called Milgram’s experiment “unethical.”

The Tuskegee Experiment, is one of the most well known blunders of United States medical research in the 20th century. Not only was it entirely unethical and inhumane, but it also highlighted the problems of racism and inequality in the medical world and the entire country at that time. By examining and reviewing the history, consequences, racism, results, and conclusion of the Tuskegee Experiment, it can perhaps shed some light on the barbaric events that transpired throughout the research.

The Milgram experiment is probably one of the most well-known experiments of the psy-sciences. (De Vos, J. (2009). Stanley Milgram was a psychologist from Yale University. He conducted an experiment focusing on the conflict between obedience to authority and personal conscience. Milgram wanted to investigate whether Germans were particularly obedient to authority figures as this was a common explanation for the Nazi killings in World War II. Milgram selected people for his experiment by newspaper advertising. He looked for male participants to take part in a study of learning at Yale University.

Some say that the Nuremberg Trials were the ‘Greatest Trial In History’. These trials introduced crimes against humanity, brought justice to Nazi Leaders and made men suffer the consequences of their actions for life.

After the war, some of those responsible for crimes committed during the Holocaust were brought to trial in Nuremberg, Germany. There was a series of 12 trials called the “Subsequent Nuremberg Proceedings”. After that took place, twenty four major political and military leaders of Nazi Germany, tried before the International Military Tribunal.

The Milgram experiment was conducted in 1963 by Stanley Milgram in order to focus on the conflict between obedience to authority and to personal conscience. The experiment consisted of 40 males, aged between 20 and 50, and who’s jobs ranged from unskilled to professional. The roles of this experiment included a learner, teacher, and researcher. The participant was deemed the teacher and was in the same room as the researcher. The learner, who was also a paid actor, was put into the next room and strapped into an electric chair. The teacher administered a test to the learner, and for each question that was incorrect, the learner was to receive an electric shock by the teacher, increasing the level of shock each time. The shock generator ranged from