How about the ethics of scientific research? Some of your students might have seen that 20/20 recently re-did the Milgram experiments that showed how readily people will go along with an authority figure, even if that person is telling them to hurt other people (in the study, they were administering strong electric shocks, or at least they thought they were; details here.) This could work on several levels, e.g., "Is it right to trick people into thinking they're violating their consciences, in the name of science," and "How effective are ethics, anyway, when so many people will violate them just because someone tells them to?"
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Date: 2007-01-25 11:07 pm (UTC)