ABSTRACT
Moral debate is an essential element in human existence, and ethics has been a central issue in philosophy for centuries. Formal ethical debate calls for coherent logical argument among people who typically share basic ethical beliefs but differ as to how such fundamental principles may be applied in a particular case. B. E. Rollin suggests that much of the debate about the moral status of research animals in psychology is irrational because most people’s moral ideas are acquired piecemeal from a variety of sources throughout life, such as parents, teachers, friends, education, reading and films. Two implicit fundamental ethical beliefs in psychology are first, that the pursuit of psychological knowledge is inherently good, not least because increased understanding could enhance the human condition, and second, that in psychological research participants should be protected from stress, undue invasions of privacy, and other forms of exploitation.
