A question of ethics.

Kayden

Kayden

Banned
Theres a man found to be mentally insane. He randomly lashes out violently trying to hurt himself and those near him. No attepted treatment has worked so far. What should be done with him?

Lock down in isolation- Put him restrained in a small room all by himself so he can't hurt anyone. Hes fed intraveinously and kept sedated.

General mental institution- He's sedated to the point where all he can manage is muffled gurgles and he pretty much drools on himself all day.

Research- Give him to a a group of doctors and let them run tests on him so that they may be able to help others with this disease.

Death- No up keep, no trouble, and he's not treated like a rat.

Feel free to add why you think what you do or give other suggestions as to how to handle this.

DO NOT call other people wrong. I don't want this to turn into a flame fest because you want to play the "he's a stupid liberal" game.
 
Sorry to let you know but General mental institutionals would not treat a person such. I work for the state for someone mentally insane and he has to be in the hospital about once a month a week for a violent outbusts. So at the most I would pick research.
 
[quote name='karmapolice']I said research. Mentally ill cant help how they are, so we shouldnt punish them for being the way they are.[/QUOTE]

I would think research would be more of a punishment than death.

Being poked with needles all day, subjected to who knows what drugs, biopsies... *shudder*

I bet most people would choose to put down a rabbid animal. I fail to see how a person that cannot control their own body qualifies to be anymore than a rabid animal.
 
[quote name='Kayden']I would think research would be more of a punishment than death.

Being poked with needles all day, subjected to who knows what drugs, biopsies... *shudder*

I bet most people would choose to put down a rabbid animal. I fail to see how a person that cannot control their own body qualifies to be anymore than a rabid animal.[/QUOTE]

It's neuroscience. They wouldn't be drugging him randomly and I don't really know what would be getting biopsied. About the most painful thing that might get done to this person would be a lumbar puncture. Other than that it would be all MRIs and whatnot.
 
[quote name='Kayden']I would think research would be more of a punishment than death.

Being poked with needles all day, subjected to who knows what drugs, biopsies... *shudder*

I bet most people would choose to put down a rabbid animal. I fail to see how a person that cannot control their own body qualifies to be anymore than a rabid animal.[/QUOTE]
To see more on what research does to people, watch the A&E video on the cold war LSD experimet on american soldiers, its a living nightmare
 
[quote name='Ozzkev55']To see more on what research does to people, watch the A&E video on the cold war LSD experimet on american soldiers, its a living nightmare[/QUOTE]

That's not at all the same case as what's going on in this hypothetical case.
 
I don't think this question is controversial enough, and I feel kind of disappointed. What I do find surprising is the amount of people that voted death in proportion to the other choices.
 
[quote name='jmcc']That's not at all the same case as what's going on in this hypothetical case.[/QUOTE]
Research it...youll find its exactly similar
 
[quote name='jmcc']That's not at all the same case as what's going on in this hypothetical case.[/QUOTE]

How do you know?

Maybe I made this thread after seeing that documentary.

Its my hypothetical case, damnit! :lol:


All I said was it's so far uncurable. Should he be given to doctors so they can do what ever they want to him? Think of treatments like kemo... they could try the exact same stuff on this guy.
 
[quote name='Kayden']Theres a man found to be mentally insane. He randomly lashes out violently trying to hurt himself and those near him. No attepted treatment has worked so far. What should be done with him?[/QUOTE]

What's been attempted?

Eh, death anyway. :lol:
 
[quote name='opportunity777']I don't think this question is controversial enough, and I feel kind of disappointed. What I do find surprising is the amount of people that voted death in proportion to the other choices.[/QUOTE]

Are you thinking it should be higher or lower? Don't be so non-descript. If you have an opinion, share it.
 
[quote name='sblymnlcrymnl']What's been attempted?

Eh, death anyway. :lol:[/QUOTE]

gramur notzy! :lol:
 
[quote name='Kayden']How do you know?

Maybe I made this thread after seeing that documentary.

Its my hypothetical case, damnit! :lol:


All I said was it's so far uncurable. Should he be given to doctors so they can do what ever they want to him? Think of treatments like kemo... they could try the exact same stuff on this guy.[/QUOTE]
Good Reading
http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/lsd/marks.htm
 
Is there some way to figure out what the patient would prefer? I know that a lot of people in this situation have some periods of clarity and calmness, and might even be normal most of the time, with just occasional periods of violence. If it is possible, I would rather ask what the patient would want.
 
[quote name='_heretic']Is there some way to figure out what the patient would prefer? I know that a lot of people in this situation have some periods of clarity and calmness, and might even be normal most of the time, with just occasional periods of violence. If it is possible, I would rather ask what the patient would want.[/QUOTE]

Nope, he doesn't even stop trying to beat your ass to take a crap. However, he does scrape it off his leg and attempt to hit you with it.

Usage of primitive tools does connotate intelligence... :whistle2:k

(Thats a joke... Good point)
 
Look, if we're going to get stupid here with hypothetical examples to make a point, let's just compare this guy to a research subject under WW2 era German or Japanese camps, huh? The fact is, if he's a research subject for legitimate doctors, they're treating him humanly. Comparing it to any of various army experiments is ridiculous and not in the scope of what was described in the original post. If you want to clarify it to read a government subject, go ahead Kayden, but until that time I'm considering this imaginary person to be part of a university research program and base my reactions appropriately.
 
[quote name='Kayden']That would take far too long to read.[/QUOTE]
Ill sum it up

The researchers would give soldiers the LSD pills, tellng them it was medication, they would then put them in varitable torture chambers when they were "trippin". They would fuck with there childlike minds with repitive noises, dizzing colored rooms. They made them sit in a room smaller than a broom closet, and watch them as struggle as the soldiers would laugh for hours at a time. All to defeat the communist threat, to find a cure for a possible weapon.
 
I think researching the mental disease and find a cure for it is the best option. But the doctor need to get the permission from the mental patient first before they conduct any 'experiment' on the patient.
 
[quote name='sblymnlcrymnl']Why not just stick him in the general prison population? Preferably with rapists. :lol:[/QUOTE]

And child molestors. *cough* ;)
 
[quote name='Ozzkev55']Good Reading
http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/lsd/marks.htm[/QUOTE]

It seems like you want to convince us that this is the same type of situation as what happened with the CIA's LSD test, but it really isn't.

When the OP suggested that the patient undergo testing, I assumed that this means refereed tests that have been approved by an experimental medical testing board. Nothing that happens in medical research nowadays happens in secret, since the ultimate aim is to discover information and find cures. That seemed to be what he was suggesting, so it seems unlikely that any of the tortuous experiments you suggest would go on.

In the case of the Army and CIA, that was a completely closed society, where experimentation could occur without any approval from external bodies because their patients were essentially captive, and they did not really care about anything but the immediate results of their tests. That type of environment breeds the sort of ethical violations that occurred in the case of the LSD tests.

It doesn't sound like that is the case in our hypothetical situation, since the aim is to find a cure for disease. If this is the case, then it should certainly have specified.
 
[quote name='Moxio']Solitairy confinement.[/QUOTE]

i dont see how that would be helpful at all. The man has no hope and will not be put out of his misery. I say research: even if there's no cure, we could help learn what caused the disease, perhaps link it to others, and discover more about the workings of the human mind.
 
Research.

However I am reminded of Nietzche: "He who fights (or researches/ tends to) with monsters (psychotic/ mentally unstable) should look to it that he himself does not become a monster "
 
This is a poll that has some actual meaning to me, because its pretty much what happened to my grandfather. After he retired, he became depressed and drank god-knows how much alcohol, completely destroying his mental thought processes. He believed that he was in a Japanese WW2 prison camp, and spent probably about a decade attacking anyone and everyone who came near him (with the exception of my mother, who he somewhat remembered.) He's been thrown out of dozens of mental institutions because he's simply too difficult to care for.

Its now 15 years later, and yes, he's still alive. His condition has improved slightly (or more accurately, he's now too feeble to do much harm when he attacks someone), but he's still essentially kept a drooling vegetable because of the massive sedatives that he's kept on. For myself, personally, I would without hesitation choose death over a fate like his, and I'm completely certain that he would too. Pretty much every member of my family agrees. So I'm going to have to vote for number 4.

And remember kids - binge drinking is BAD. Don't think this sort of stuff only happens to old people, either - during his decade and a half of institutionalization, I've met several younger people in nearly the same condition, caused by drinking. Alcohol is bad.
 
Ethically, I'd vote for death. It'll be euthansia (sp?) in this case. But, if I had to go with cold academic logic, I'd go for research. The adage "The more you know, the better off you'll be" would apply here. If we, collectively as humanity, know more about what makes this person crazy (what neurotransmitters are firing, what chemical imbalances there are, etc.), then this person would be able to contribute more to society as a test subject instead of having his most worthwhile contribution be flinging feces like a monkey.
 
I voted Doctors, but this is pretty straight forward. No one in a civilized society is going to kill the guy unless he's a serial killer (with his random outbursts). No one's keeping him eternally sedated.....I think that would be illegal as well. And like someone else said, "loony bins" don't technically exist. THis really isn't that controversial. If one of the choices were "make him the leader of a small country and give him an army" or I don't know.....
 
[quote name='Stoneage']No one's keeping him eternally sedated.....I think that would be illegal as well. [/QUOTE]
Nope, its not. There's entire nursing homes full of seriously deranged people pumped so full of drugs that they can barely keep their eyes open for 5 minutes at a time, and strapped into their chairs/beds for good measure for when the drugs wear off. If you ever have to visit one, the 'kill them' option suddenly seems quite humane.
 
I've been in multiple nursing homes (father, grandfather, great grandmother and for college), and I've seen the populations there.

I think handing them over to doctors (the popular choice here) is totally inhumane and cruel and on the same idea (but somewhat more humane) than what was done to the insane under the nazis (I'm using this example since this is the one everyone would know). While I would argue the testing on any living being is horrendous, I'm shocked most don't agree that human testing is horrible.

The other problem with testing is that, no matter how humane it's supposed to be, it sometimes wouldn't be. Like animal testing, no matter how humane it's supposed to be, it often isn't and then you get those who really don't care (and considering that I would assume most doctors would refuse to participate in involuntary human testing, I would think the doctors who did would care less about the individual).

I chose psychiatric ward, but I wouldn't do it in the fashion that was suggested.
 
personally, if i were in a vegetative state, I would want to be euthenized, but i find it inhumane to perform it on people who can't decide for themselves
 
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