Pain, Pleasure, and the Greater Good: From the Panopticon to the Skinner Box and Beyond

Gere (history, Univ. of California, San Diego; Knossos and the Prophets of Modernism) posits that utilitarian reasoning prompted physicians to commit medical atrocities. Currently, physicians require informed consent of their patients to perform medical procedures, which acts as a bulwark against such abuses, but Gere cautions that utilitarian reasoning is once again threatening the few to help the many. She offers a chilling retelling of noteworthy abuses of patients and subjects by physicians and researchers, most notably those that occurred during World War II, and the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, noting that many offenders attempt to justify their actions by claiming they were necessary sacrifices for the greater good. Gere concludes that utilitarian thinking inevitably leads to such abuses and ought to be rejected. Unfortunately, this text neglects serious analysis of utilitarianism, the theory that the right thing to do is that which will maximize everyone's happiness. John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism argues that justice and fairness are required to achieve the greatest good. The (scientifically incompetent) Nazi and Tuskegee experiments were clearly not done to benefit humanity as a whole, and failed to consider the well-being of those under experimentation—unthinkable for a true utilitarian. Although these moral monsters claimed to advance human health, their actions show otherwise.