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Therac-25 Disaster (How it destroyed lives (Background (The program itself…
Therac-25 Disaster
How it destroyed lives
Background
The program that was developed for the Therac-25 was designed by a single individual who lacked formal training.
The program itself was written in assembly language, a low level language, but there were not many better options at the time.
Assembly language was used due to the fact that the Therac devices required a high level of speed when preforming functions.
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Certain patients would be exposed to a high exposure of radiation killing them within weeks to months after the visit.
Critical sections in the software are not protected and the hardware interacts were removed which were a safety backup for the radiation amount resulting in over exposure to patients.
In the high electron mode it would move the filter out of the way if it had no target resulting in intense overexposure to the patient.
Ethical Theories
Kantianism
Can I rationally will that everyone act as I propose to act? In other words If I build this machine, is it ok for other people to build a similar machine if I knew there were flaws in its programming?
No, it is not ok to build this machine whiteout proper safeguards in place
Does creating the machine respect the goals of human beings rather than merely using them for my own purposes?
Yes and no, this project was rushed for financial reasons knowing the safeguards were not in place, but the purpose of the machine was to save lives.
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Based on the available evidence, is it ok to build this machine knowing it can kill people but save more lives than it will harm which would benefit the greater good.
According to Kants rules, Therac-25 would not be acceptable to build and use
Act Utilitarianism
Belief that an action becomes morally right when it produces the greatest good for the greatest number of people.
If we look at Act Utilitarian, this machine is ethically acceptable to build for one main reason.
This machine will ultimately save more lives than it will harm due to the fact that the majority of people that used the machine ended up being healed instead of dying in the later weeks.
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How it saved lives
The Therac-25 was actually one of several devices designed to help cancer patients, the previous designs had worked well.
The Therac-25, like other Therac devices, used X-ray beams to target cancer cells.
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