PHLB09H3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Gradualism, Sentience, Bioethics
Document Summary
Splitting a sample group into: experimental group, receive experimental treatment, control group, active control (existing treatment, placebo. Often double-blinded: researchers and subjects do not know whether the subject is in experimental or control group. Informed consent: patient has to be competent, understand choices, voluntary. Beneficence: doctors have a duty of beneficence to their patient. If there"s something they can do to help a patient, they should do it: duty of beneficence in research. If researches have duty of beneficence, they must be in equipoise to continue the trial: freedman defends clinical equipoise, miller and brody: researchers don"t have a duty of beneficence but have to conform to informed consent. Research is for the sake of research. Arguments against destruction of embryos based on their present features: embryos have feature x, if something has feature x, it had moral status, if something has moral status, it can"t be destroyed. Stem cells: there are too many stem cells, cancel normal pregnancy.
