The Consequences Of The Tuskegee Study

339 Words2 Pages
The consequences of the Tuskegee study never having been conducted can never be known, but nonetheless are void in judging the morality of the Tuskegee study because under Kantian ethics, the researchers committed an imperfect duty. According to Kant, an individual should act out of good will. The researchers had good reason to believe, as did other physicians at the time, that penicillin would be effective in treating people with latent syphilis, yet withheld treatment, essentially violating one of the principal rules all healthcare students are taught in school, to do no harm. In Kant’s view, these researchers had ill will to the subjects and treated them as mere means to an end which stands in direct violation of his assertion that individuals