Here's the conundrum: knowing this stuff is important -- the Stanford Prison Study, for example, underpins our understanding of phenomena like the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib, and should be an important teachable moment for anyone working in the penal or rehab system. But the experiments themselves ... how do you conduct experiments if the outcomes for the human subjects are potentially very damaging and prior informed consent would wreck the experimental protocol but the potential pay-off is of that order?
(I have no good answer to this question other than "if you're going to hurt people you'd better have a very good reason -- one you'd be willing to use in your defense in court when they prosecute you.")
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2014-04-26 09:38 pm (UTC)(I have no good answer to this question other than "if you're going to hurt people you'd better have a very good reason -- one you'd be willing to use in your defense in court when they prosecute you.")