Why Is Harlow's Experiments Wrong

Harlow’s experiments are wrong because their outcomes do not justify the death and inhumane treatment of the monkeys. Lauren Slater states in her book Opening Skinner’s Box: Great Psychological Experiments of the Twentieth Century, “I, for one, am unsure whether [Harlow’s experiment] provides us with new knowledge, or simply confirms what we all intuitively knew, at the expense of many monkeys’ lives” (147). Basically, Slater is saying that the outcome of Harlow’s killing and torturing of monkeys was not new knowledge, but only confirmation of what we already knew. Experiments are justified in sacrificing monkeys if the outcome of the experiment is the discovery of new knowledge. By contrast, experiments are not justified in sacrificing monkeys