An Ethical Criticism On Human Body Experiments Conducted By Japanese Unit 731 During The Second World War

During the Second World War, Japanese invaders set up manygerm-warfare oriented bases in China, among which was the notoriousUnit 731 camped in Pingfang District in Harbin, a large city in thenortheast China. In the command of Isii Siro, the army, in order to getadvantage over its foes in the ongoing, war, conducted terribleexperiments with germs on numerous civilians from China and othercountries. And they were much more atrocious than the contemporaryNazi Concentration Camps of their ally Germany. They involved lotsof medical ethics. Actually, Unit 731 imposed great impact on theethics of the mankind as a whole apparently; the experimentsundermined human dignity and caused a series of humanist crises. Forthe benefit of the mankind, we should draw lessons from the darkhistory by reflecting on Unit 731's experiments on human beings. Thereflection, while showing our serious attitudes towards history, is asignificant theoretical and practical matter in the human ethic system.So far, quite a number of scholars have made research on theevent from the perspective of history and ethics. Based on theseprevious studies, the present thesis, adopting the method of casestudies, is to present an all-round review of Unit 731's anti-humanistexperiments during the Second World War. A conclusion is putforward in the thesis that: the reflection on the horrible experiments,especially that from the perspective of ethics, is expected to attachmore importance to ethic values, supervise medical experiments onhuman beings and provide a appropriate ethic system for the modernmedical research as well as to remind us of the history and preventcollective oblivion; Japanese invaders' Unit 731 trampled the medicalprinciples of motive, consent, scientificness and subject's protection.Unit 731's human body experiments disgraced the mankind and a profound ethic source can be found with the atrocity: the contradictionbetween the requirements of science and the ethic principles forms theindirect motivation and the ethic hegemonism resulted from theJapanese samurai spirits place a premium on these experiments.Medical experiments on human body should bring benefits to mankindand abide by medical ethics.