Sociological Imagination
When human experimenting first started for medical research first started, there seemed to not be many values or societal norms. The only main value was to further the knowledge for the medical area, hence all the exploitation of humans that went on. Values are “culturally defined standards by which people judge desirability, goodness, and beauty, and which serve as broad guidelines for social living as well as public policies” (F.S, 2011). Three values associated with my fire project are all around the idea of ethics. The three values would be, respect, beneficence and justice. These three values serve as a foundation for my norms and sanctions because they are things I live by every day and are values that have become very important to me, they have become things I always expect. Norms are something that is usual, typical or standard, usually having to do with social behavior. Norm violations are very associated with my issue; it is basically what my fire project is about. Respect, beneficence and justice are all values that are broken when exploitation of people for medical research happens. Each norm violation works against my identified value. Sanctions are like a punishment that is given when it comes to breaking a norm or even when it gets more serious to something like breaking the law. With the UIC example of unethical research that I gave earlier it is clear that there are some sanctions when it comes to breaking the norms. Sanctions include research being cancelled or losing money or even people that would have otherwise gone to the research. These sanctions encourage the researchers to follow the norms or values because otherwise a lot could be lost and the research would not even happen.
Out of the three theoretical perspectives, the one that best fits with my fire project issue is the theoretical perspective of Conflict. The conflict theory is a perspective in which looks at social life as a competition and it focuses on the distribution of power, resources and inequality. This theoretical perspective connects to my fire project issue because my whole issue provides a huge conflict. There is a lot of inequality in the people that are chosen as the “test subjects” in the experimental research that goes on. The groups that are “in competition” that are participating in my issue would be the researchers and the ones that are being tested and exploited. The researchers seem to be the ones in power and they hold the value of knowledge for the medical research world. The ones being tested are the ones that are constrained and the values that should be held are the ones that are being broken and not followed.
Out of the three theoretical perspectives, the one that best fits with my fire project issue is the theoretical perspective of Conflict. The conflict theory is a perspective in which looks at social life as a competition and it focuses on the distribution of power, resources and inequality. This theoretical perspective connects to my fire project issue because my whole issue provides a huge conflict. There is a lot of inequality in the people that are chosen as the “test subjects” in the experimental research that goes on. The groups that are “in competition” that are participating in my issue would be the researchers and the ones that are being tested and exploited. The researchers seem to be the ones in power and they hold the value of knowledge for the medical research world. The ones being tested are the ones that are constrained and the values that should be held are the ones that are being broken and not followed.