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Moral And Ethical Issues In Frankenstein Essay

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The guiding question of all science fiction can be summed up by this sentence: “‘If this goes on, where will it lead?’”(Sawyer) By asking this basic, yet perplexing question, writers extrapolate on a known scientific principle to its most extreme case, and thereby create a catalyst for the events of the stories they write. Inside this story, the innate natures and behaviors of human beings are revealed through the characters’ reaction to the new threat that an advance in technology or scientific knowledge presents. The moral and ethical dilemmas created in these hypothetical futures allows the reader to better understand and examine the enigmatic state of the human condition. An example of this type of literature is the novel Frankenstein. …show more content…

A company willingly uses time travel as a business venture, wholly knowing that the most minute change in the past could irreparably alter the present, and goes back to the cretaceous period to hunt a tyrannosaurus rex. While there, a traveler accidentally takes a misstep and crushes a butterfly. When the travelers return to the future, the language being used in the country has changed and the outcome of an election has been altered by the traveller’s misstep. Science Fiction has the capability to serve as a cautionary tale about future technological advancements by exploring the ethical responsibilities of scientific advancement, and demonstrating the negative capacity of the pursuit of knowledge, revealing human societies’ arrogance towards the limits of their capabilities.
With greater knowledge about the properties and functions of the world, the ethical responsibilities of scientists in their application of this knowledge are paramount to preserving the well-being of human civilization as well as the sanity of their scientists. When disregarded, the repercussions can be numerous and grim. Victor’s monster’s destructive and murderous actions are an example of the consequences of unethical scientific advancement. Victor uses his knowledge of animation to hastily create a being who craved sympathy and love, similar to a human being, but formed him as to create abhorrence in any who looked upon him. This deprived the monster of a

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