Dubious Premises—Evil Conclusions: Moral Reasoning at the Nuremberg Trials

Fifty years ago, 23 Nazi physicians were defendants before a military tribunal in Nuremberg, charged with crimes against humanity. During that trial, the world learned of their personal roles in human experimentation with political and military prisoners, mass eugenic sterilizations, state-ordered e...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Cambridge quarterly of healthcare ethics 2000-04, Vol.9 (2), p.261-274
Main Authors: PELLEGRINO, EDMUND D., THOMASMA, DAVID C.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bioethics
Complicity
Ethical Analysis
Ethical Relativism
Ethics, Medical
Euthanasia - legislation & jurisprudence
Germany
Homicide - legislation & jurisprudence
International trials
Internationality
Liability, Legal
Moral reasoning
Mortality
National Socialism
Political Systems
Professional Misconduct
Retrospective Moral Judgment
Social Change
Social Justice
Social Responsibility
Sterilization, Reproductive - legislation & jurisprudence
War crimes
World War 2
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Summary:Fifty years ago, 23 Nazi physicians were defendants before a military tribunal in Nuremberg, charged with crimes against humanity. During that trial, the world learned of their personal roles in human experimentation with political and military prisoners, mass eugenic sterilizations, state-ordered euthanasia of the “unfit,” and the program of genocide we now know as the Holocaust. These physicians, and their colleagues who did not stand trial, were universally condemned in the free world as ethical pariahs. The term “Nazi doctor” became the paradigm for total defection from the most rudimentary elements of medical morality. The caduceus literally became the instrument of the swastika.
ISSN:0963-1801
1469-2147
DOI:10.1017/S0963180100902123