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Some Perspectives on Ethical/Political Issues in Social Science Research

University of California, Santa Cruz

Current principles and regulations concerning the ethics of research on human participants draw on two unrelated frames of reference: informed consent and harm/benefit. Problems involved in informed consent include the inability of some classes of potential participants to give such consent, the incompatibility of some research designs with fully informed consent, and ambiguities about the meaning of "informed." Problems involved in the harm/benefit frame include the impossibility of balancing benefit to science and society against harm to an individual and the question of who is to assess harms and benefits. Two currently proposed extensions of commonly accepted principles are discussed: the possible harm of deceptive procedures to the normative order of society, and the rights of categories of individuals, and of institutions, with respect to consent and harm/benefit. The former is favored, the latter oppossed.

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