Constructing a Coherent Philosophical Basis for Research Ethics
Date
2015
Authors
White, Lucie Alexandra
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Abstract
The purpose of this dissertation is to identify some of the most
pressing problems in the dominant contemporary approach to
research ethics, and to devise an alternative approach that
avoids these problems. I contend that the fundamental ethical
values invoked in human research are often appealed to in
contradictory or ambiguous ways, or in ways that do not
adequately capture or do not show an adequate understanding of
the specific ethical concerns of human research. One significant
problem in this domain
is that values for ethical research are often unreflectively
imported from medical therapy, producing ill-suited guidelines
that cannot capture the different ethical situations that arise
in the context of research. Furthermore, ethical guidelines in
this area are often not developed with a sufficient understanding
of the deep philosophical issues that they invoke. I suggest that
we can address these problems through examining the fundamental
ethical concerns of research on a philosophical level. This
method will reveal severe problems with the approach to two of
the ethical values underlying research; beneficence and respect
for autonomy (or respect for persons). Once the nature of these
problems has been revealed, and with reference to ethical
problems that typically arise in the domain of research, I
construct a coherent philosophical foundation for research
ethics, which both avoids these deep-seated problems and better
captures the ethical issues that arise in the domain of human
research. I argue that we need to
radically depart from the values of beneficence and
autonomy/respect for persons as they are currently understood in
the guidelines. We need an idea of beneficence that is clearly
distinct from that which is used in the therapeutic medical
context from which this notion is currently drawn. I also contend
that we need to move away from autonomy as a central value in
research ethics. I posit an alternative choice-based approach to
informed consent which is concerned both with respecting
agents’ freedom of choice, and also with their wellbeing, as
providing a good means of protecting and promoting the interests
of the individual research subject. Although these two
imperatives are often thought to clash on a fundamental level, I
will
show that, in research ethics, they can be reconciled with
minimal conflict. Though this represents a departure from the
ethics of medical therapy, this approach is far more suited to
the context of research. This theoretical basis for informed
consent can help to clarify the ethical problems that are
specific to this domain and provide us with relevant ethical
guidance in research ethics.
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Keywords
research ethics, autonomy, beneficence, informed consent, respect for persons, Faden and Beauchamp, Declaration of Helsinki, Belmont Report, bioethics, medical ethics
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