Ethical Issue: Falsifying Information

In one of the more publicized incidents concerning ethics in recent news, South Korean stem cell scientist Hwang Woo-suk, a professor at Seoul National University, acknowledged and apologized for publishing fake human stem cell research (Jie-ae). Hwang had been hailed as a hero in South Korea for his work in stem cell research, specifically with cloning (Jie-ae). In a 2004 article in Science magazine, HwangÆs team announced that they had cloned the first human embryos for research, and in another article in May 2005, they claimed that they had produced ôthe first embryonic tailored stem cellsö (Jie-ae). Human embryonic stem cell research has been hotly debated due to the conflict between its possibilities for relieving degenerative diseases and its violation of medical ethics in terms of the killing of human embryos to obtain stem cells for research.

As the lead author of the papers on the institutionÆs research, Hwang accepted full responsibility for the fake research data but explained that he had been deceived by researchers at another lab who worked on the project with him; he insisted that he does have ôthe technology to create patient-specific stem cells under the right conditionsö and that he has cloned human embryos but that the researchers at the other hospital lied to him about their success in doing so (Jie-ae). He has since been hospitalized for extreme stress, stripped of his status as a ôtop scientist,ö stepped down f

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the wrongdoers were implementing utilitarian ethics, which looks beyond the right and wrong of a situation and evaluates it in terms of the expected outcome (Mellahi, 10). Team members probably were unable to accomplish their part of the research successfully, and rather than admit their failure to Hwang, covered it up by fabricating data and pretending to complete it. They may have determined that this would enable the research to continueùa noble outcomeùso the end justified the means. The journalistsÆ ethics are much murkier, but assuming that they also had noble reasons for their actionsùpossibly a mistaken notion of wrongdoing on HwangÆs partùtheir business ethics were also probably rooted in the utilitarian concept of ethics, where the outcome is all that matters. This incident underlines the inherent fallacy in utilitarian ethicsùthat an action can be determined to be right based on its expected outcome rather than on fundamental principles of right and wrong. Human reasoning is capable of ascribing noble intent or outcomes to virtually any action, no matter how despicable. Upgrading the ethics in this incident should be approached from two directionsùthe philosophical and the practical. In terms of philosophy, the u
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Moon Sun, Ethicsö Instead, Jie-ae Human, Hwang Woo-suk, South Korea, Retrieved January, Jie-ae Mitchell, Mitchell HwangÆs, Notebookö Mitchell, National University, stem cell, stem cell research, cell research, january 25 2006, ôdeontological ethicsö, 25 2006, retrieved january, retrieved january 25, january 25, human embryos, cloned human, 12 retrieved january, 12 retrieved, monitored enforced, cloned human embryos,
Approximate Word count = 1222
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)