The End Never Justifies the Means in Human Research

This paper discusses whether the end justifies the means in human research. It highlights the ethical issues involved in using human beings as research specimens.

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The End Never Justifies the Means in Human Research
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Human Research 2
The End Never Justify the Means in Research Concerning Humans
Research involving human beings has always raised various ethical issue. These issues
usually arise when the acceptability to use human beings as research specimen is evaluated. The
field of social work mainly focuses on assisting people leads better lives. In a bid to understand
the best way to address community and societal challenges, social works researchers may need to
involve human beings in their research process. This paper will focus on research concerning
humans. Specifically, it will focus on whether the end justifies the means in human research.
According to Paquette, Sommerfeld and Kent (2015), human beings are the only social
animals endowed with the ability to reason. This ability makes the difference between the nature
of humans and that of other primates. Due to this, humans have formed social norms that guide
the means to be used to attain certain results (Andes, 2017). Sometimes however, humans do not
necessarily pay attention to the means to an end as long as the end justifies the means. They are
mostly interested with the result that they are going to get. This phenomenon is also observed in
research involved human researches. Researchers may try to convince the community that the
end of the research justifies the means. Human life cannot be taken too casually that they are
used as specimen. Researchers often take advantage of the poor to do such researches (Andes,
2017). This kind of mannerism cannot be accepted in the social work They try to convince the
society and community at large to accept their outcome of what they were researching about as
the final truth. The beginning of something may not be that good. It might be sad and
challenging but the humans will do all that it takes to ensure that at the end the results are
positive. In research pertaining social work, human beings may be of particular interest.
Extensive evidence has revealed that humans are likely to forget the means used as long as the
outcomes are positive (Kaplan, 2017). There is also a sense in which dubious researchers can

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always engineer the results to appear positive. Therefore, the end does not always justify the
means when it comes to research involving human beings.
When a positive outcome is achieved it is good to us human beings but if we go deep to
assess the means or ways that were used to achieve the outcome (Kaplan, 2017). There are times
that the human use corrupted means to accomplish a certain task and the end seems positive but,
in the reality, it is all an illusion created in an attempt to maintain the interests of the individuals
behind a research (Tool, 2017). This kind of behavior way clearly shows that the end does not
necessarily justify the end as long as what was required is achieved. The means that the human
use is supposed to portray the level of integrity and transparency of the highest level but this
does not necessarily happen at all. This phenomenon is slowly misleading the society and the
generation that is being raised.
The society or the human nature is trying to teach the younger generation that they
require one another in order to achieve a certain task and have a positive result (Seidman, 2016).
When the issue of following what is good and honest way of doing things, it might cause
discomfort and thus they are left with no choice rather than to use other means. This issue is
making human to use corruptible means so that they can achieve something without considering
the other fellow humans as long as at the end they will achieve a positive outcome (Seidman,
2016). The society should focus less on the outcome and the process since the end does not
justify the means (Paquette, Sommerfeld and Kent, 2015). The illusion described above applies
to research involving humans. It is therefore true to conclude that the end does not justify the
means in researches pertaining human beings.

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References
Andes, B. D. ,2017. The End Does Not Justify the Means: Why Diminished Due Process during
Reductions in Force Is Unjust. Mil. L. Rev., 225, 84.
Kaplan, A. 2017. The counter-terrorism puzzle: A guide for decision makers. 3rd ed. New York:
Routledge.
Paquette, M., Sommerfeld, E. J., & Kent, M. L. 2015. Do the ends justify the means? Dialogue,
development communication, and deontological ethics. Public Relations Review, 41(1),
30-39.
Seidman, A. 2016. State and law in the development process: problem-solving and institutional
change in the Third World. 2nd ed. New York: Springer.
Tool, M. 2017. The discretionary economy: A normative theory of political economy. 3rd ed. New
York: Routledge.