“It Might be Dangerous…You Go First”: The Ethics of Research in Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” and Mel Brooks’s “Young Frankenstein”

“It Might be Dangerous…You Go First”: The Ethics of Research in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Mel Brooks’s Young Frankenstein

Stephen S. Hanson

Tulane University

Abstract

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is described as an example of the dangers of science, especially of science taken into areas where “one ought not to go.” We are warned to avoid exploring areas better left unexplored, to avoid research we shouldn’t be doing, or to ask, “How much is too much?” Even if this was the original intent, there is a better, and more helpful, interpretation of the work for modern scientists to take: Frankenstein as a condemnation of unethical research and as an argument for modern ethical review of research, such as that which is conducted by an Institutional Review Board. Perhaps surprisingly, this can be shown by comparing it to the 1974 spoof, Young Frankenstein.

About the Author

Stephen S. Hanson is an Associate Professor at Tulane University School of Medicine, where he is director of Graduate Studies for the Bioethics and Medical Humanities program. His PhD is in philosophy, and he has worked on ethics committees in hospital and hospice settings and on research ethics review committees for medical and socio-behavioral research. His teaching and recent publications focus on clinical and research ethics, end of life issues, and justice in health and health care, and teaching a recent course on bioethics and the movies allowed him to watch Young Frankenstein with a group of students and have it be part of his job.

Author’s Website

Orcid ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9993-1352

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Published: 2023 – 08 – 10