Tuskegee-A Synopsis of My Address on 15th Annniversary of the Presidential Apology

1 An Ethical Inquiry into the USPHS Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Male Negro, 1932-1972 Peter J. Paris Elmer G. Homrighausen Professor Emeritus Christian Social Ethics Princeton Theological Seminary This address comprises a Neo-Aristotelian overview of virtue ethics as another approach to the several ethical assessments of the USPHS Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Male Negro, 1932-1972. The paper begins with an out line of the subject matter and its methodology of viewing activities of knowing, doing and becoming as integrated in moral development because virtue ethics is a practical science as opposed to a theoretical science. As such it is an appropriate science of human action because the latter involves freedom which implies that every action could have been otherwise. That is to say, human action begins with choice as the principle of freedom. As such there is no end that lies outside the action itself. Virtue ethics is a study of human freedom and how character is formed as a result of habitual practices. Unfortunately, the doctors who conducted the USPHS Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Male Negro, 1932-1972 intentionally chose not to treat the 623 subjects as patients worthy of being respected as persons and deserving of being told the truth about their health. Rather, they were deliberately deceived by white doctors for four

Tuskegee-A Synopsis of My Address on 15th Annniversary of the Presidential Apology

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