Beschreibung:
Elizabeth Fistein and Sally Quilligan's experiences of research ethics committees (see page 224) provide us with a glimpse of the interesting set of ethical issues surrounding the ethical governance of research. The biggest and arguably most intractable of these is how to judge between respect for autonomy (through the process of consent), the potential harm or benefit to the participant, and the overall value of the research. These are the big three—the researcher is very likely to judge them differently from the ethics committee member.Fistein and Quilligan's experiences also raise questions about the relationship between method and ethics. Methodological questions are clearly important for the ethics of research, but that does not help when non-experts in the research methodology make (ill-informed) judgements about that methodology. Their advice to the novice here seems to me to be spot on: ‘Take great care explaining methodology’. The distinction between audit and research comes up …