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A Hippocratic Oath For Scientists
grrlscientist writes "In response to what appears to be a growing problem of scientific misconduct, a group of people at the Institute of Medical Science at University of Toronto in Canada wrote a scientist's version of the Hippocratic oath. This oath (which is cited in the story) was recited by all graduate students in the biological sciences at the beginning of the 2007-2008 academic year." This blogger argues that merely reciting an oath is not going to help much when "...the corruption in 'science' is systemic. It is due to corporate science being run according to a business model instead of in accordance to an educational paradigm. It is due to unrestrained corporate greed combined with a tremendous disparity in power and income..."
This is rich. A bunch of pennyless, financially ignoramus scientists, daring to take on the only natural law there is, the laws of the Free Market, and thus colliding with the greatest thing in the Universe, that is Free, Private Entreprise??? Oh! The humanity!!!
First of all there are a number of medical functions in the execution process. You start by making the assumption of good faith, on the part of the justice system (which is obviously an assumption).
So if it orders an execution, this execution is just.
During the carrying out of the physical execution there are a number of medical functions that are not questionable at all :
-> confirming death of the convicted
-> preventing accidents (this includes stuff like advising and checking the dosage of any chemical that is to be administered, advising what the result of administering said dose will be, and monitoring the process)
These are controversial, but only among the loony left sections of docters.
That leaves :
-> actually starting the process
Now the reasoning is that the docter is not actually the party carrying out the termination of life (that would be illegal), it is the justice system that is initiating the process. So the reasoning goes, even though a docter is physically starting the process of termination, he did not start this process "in the real world", it was not started by the justice system either, but as a conscious choice on the part of the convicted. In other words : it is not at all the docter that is "the cause of his death", but rather the choices made by the convicted individual.
The hippocratic oath, itself being an extralegal oath, also calls attention to the difference between malum in se (a moral crime) and malum prohibitum (a crime that is merely against man-made law, say, not fastening your seatbelt). Death penalty is the better of 2 evils, never a good deed in itself.
Now obviously the death penalty, being a law, can never be malum prohibitum. So what is the moral angle ? The death penalty is not good, nobody's arguing that one, but the death penalty is the lesser of 2 evils. Remember that refusing to choose is also a choice (in this case it's knowingly exposing others to potentially lethal violence, that has been known to have been lethal at least once in the past).
So the real question is simply of who do you protect ? The innocent or the guilty ? You kill no matter which choice you make (and the argument "but there's a chance" holds no water, since you're to accept the ruling of the court, not merely your own. It is arrogant beyond belief that you're capable of better moral judgement than the justice apparatus, and it is illegal to act on that belief).
All the arguments against it are going to try to treat the death penalty as a malum prohibitum (literally following the words) issue, for the simple reason that if they treat is as malum in se (like it was always treated) they have 2600 years of history speaking against them.
If you're a believer : Jesus Christ himself was asked whether the (secular, separate from religion) law gets to use violence : his answer was short, and very clear : yes. Believing Christians have therefore the full permission of God himself to use violence to defend the state. Later on he willingly accepted the verdict of the death penalty made by the state upon himself, which one can interpret as showing the validity of the punishment (in addition to it's primary meaning obviously), at the very least it confirms that using violence against a state official trying to carry out the death penalty is morally reprehensible. (again here he made a choice between 2 alternatives : the results of both choices were known to him, and he chose to undergo the death penalty, he chose the lesser of 2 evils, and walked with certainty to his fate)
And if you're a muslim, your "prophet" executed over 10000 people directly, most (over 6000) for disagreeing with him, over 2000 for first agreeing with him and then leaving islam. The wars he started would eventually take over 300 million deaths (and those are the low estimates). He was NOT trying to protect anyone like Jesus Christ was, he was trying to destroy their lives, and the wars he started would eventually result in at least 300 million religio