Experimenty na lidech?

• Authors: Wendy

Title variants

EN

Experiments on people?

• Languages of publication: CS

Abstracts

EN

This article is concerned with the questions surrounding the admissibility of socio psychological experiments which were raised in a discussion at the 44th international film festival AFO (Akademia film Olomouc) in April of this year. It describes several important documentary films, and the phenomena which they explored, including undue or inappropriate obedience to authorities, the growth of brutality in prison conditions and the so-called “bystander effect” (apathy in situations where one should intervene). A distinction is made between useful findings about cognition and their ethical acceptability. The author reminds us of Dilthey’s distinction between two models of interpretation: “understanding” (Verstehen) and “clarification” (Erklären). While the second of these is suitable for the investigation of mass phenomena, only understanding is of use in humanistic psychology. With regard to the question of the ethical acceptability of experiments, the article recognises boundaries which are, in principle, sacrosanct and it attempts to show why negative moral phenomena are not testable. It argues that an experiment does not occur beyond the boundaries of the real world, and thus the creation of the conditions of research into non-ethical phenomena means the purposeful creation of a space for evil.

Keywords

EN

socio psychological experiments; obedience to authorities; brutality; “bystander effect”; ethical acceptability

Discipline

• PSYCHOLOGY: PSYCHOLOGY
• PHILOSOPHY: PHILOSOPHY

• Publisher: Institute of Philosophy, Czech Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Filosofický časopis (Philosophical Journal)
• Year: 2009
• Volume: 57
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 423-436
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Wendy

• Filosofický časopis, redakce, Filosofický ústav AV ČR, v.v.i., Jilská 1, 110 00 Praha 1, Czech Republic