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Ethical The concept of ethics relates to the things we would or would not accept as "morally right". In this respect, ethics relates quite clearly to the values people hold, either individually or as part of wider social groups. Sociologically, the concept used to identify very strong moral values is that of mores (pronounced "mor-rays"). In this particular instance, the question of whether it would be morally right to experiment on new-born babies in this way is significant, since it is highly unlikely that our particular society would tolerate this type of research in the name of "science". This is not, however, to say this would be true of all societies (a cross-cultural perspective) at all times (an historical perspective). In Germany under Hitler, for example, groups such as Jews and Poles were classified as "sub-human" and subjected to various forms of treatment (imprisonment without trial, forced labour, medical experimentation, death and so forth) that would not be tolerated (or considered morally right) in our society... |