BackgroundCurrent guidelines do not clearly outline when assent should be attained from paediatric research participants, nor do they detail the necessary elements of the assent process. This stems from the fact that the fundamental justification behind the concept of assent is misunderstood. In this paper, we critically assess three widespread ethical arguments used for assent: children’s rights, the best interests of the child, and respect for a child’s developing autonomy. We then outline a newly-developed two-fold justification for the assent process: (...) respect for the parent’s pedagogical role in teaching their child to become an autonomous being and respect for the child’s moral worth.DiscussionWe argue that the ethical grounding for the involvement of young children in medical decision-making does not stem from children’s rights, the principle of best interests, or respect for developing autonomy. An alternative strategy is to examine the original motivation to engage with the child. In paediatric settings there are two obligations on the researcher: an obligation to the parents who are responsible for determining when and under what circumstances the child develops his capacity for autonomy and reasoning, and an obligation to the child himself. There is an important distinction between respecting a decision and encouraging a decision. This paper illustrates that the process of assent is an important way in which respect for the child as an individual can be demonstrated, however, the value lies not in the child’s response but the fact that his views were solicited in the first place.SummaryThis paper demonstrates that the common justifications for the process of assent are incomplete. Assent should be understood as playing a pedagogical role for the child, helping to teach him how specific decisions are made and therefore helping him to become a better decision-maker. How the researcher engages with the child supports his obligation to the child’s parents, yet why the researcher engages with the child stems from the child’s moral worth. Treating a child as having moral worth need not mean doing what they say but it may mean listening, considering, engaging or involving them in the decision. (shrink)

What implications, if any, does evolutionary biology have for metaethics? Many believe that our evolutionary background supports a deflationary metaethics, providing a basis at least for debunking ethical realism. Some arguments for this conclusion appeal to claims about the etiology of the mental capacities we employ in ethical judgment, while others appeal to the etiology of the content of our moral beliefs. In both cases the debunkers’ claim is that the causal roles played by evolutionary factors raise deep epistemic problems (...) for realism: if ethical truths are objective or independent of our evaluative attitudes, as realists maintain, then we lose our justification for our ethical beliefs once we become aware of the evolutionary shaping of our ethical capacities or beliefs, which would not have disposed us reliably to track independent ethical truths; realism, they claim, thus saddles us with ethical skepticism. I distinguish and spell out various evolutionary debunking arguments along these lines and argue that they all fail: the capacity etiology argument fails to raise any special or serious problem for realism, and the content etiology arguments all rely on strong explanatory claims about our moral beliefs that are simply not supported by the science unless it is supplemented by philosophical claims that just beg the question against realism from the start. While the various debunking arguments do bring out some interesting commitments of ethical realism, and even raise some good challenges as realists develop positive moral epistemologies, they fall far short of their debunking ambitions. (shrink)

In this paper we argue that the insistence by Fodor et. al. that the Language of Thought hypothesis must be true rests on mistakes about the kinds of explanations that must be provided of cognitive phenomena. After examining the canonical arguments for the LOT, we identify a weak version of the LOT hypothesis which we think accounts for some of the intuitions that there must be a LOT. We then consider what kinds of explanation cognitive phenomena require, and conclude that (...) three main confusions lead to the invalid inference of the truth of a stronger LOT hypothesis from the weak and trivial version. These confusions concern the relationship between syntax and semantics, the nature of higher-level causation in cognitive science, and differing roles of explanations invoking intrinsic structures of minds on the one hand, and aetiological or evolutionary accounts of their properties on the other. (shrink)

The Doctrine of Double Effect (DDE) is an influential non-consequentialist principle positing a role for intention in affecting the moral permissibility of some actions. In particular, the DDE focuses on the intend/foresee distinction, the core claim being that it is sometimes permissible to bring about as a foreseen but unintended side-effect of one’s action some harm it would have been impermissible to aim at as a means or as an end, all else being equal. This article explores the meaning and (...) application of the DDE along with current debates over the nature of the intend/foresee distinction and its moral significance. How is the line between intended effects and merely foreseen but unintended side-effects to be drawn, and how are problem cases best handled? What is an appropriate methodology for debating the tenability of the DDE? How might the DDE interact with other non-consequentialist principles, and how might it be modified to capture other related factors (resulting perhaps in a Doctrine of Triple Effect) or to avoid certain problem cases? Does the DDE make permissibility turn on the actual intentions of particular agents, as critics such as Thomson and Scanlon assume, or is the role of intention more abstract? (shrink)

The distinction between harm that is intended as a means or end, and harm that is merely a foreseen side-effect of one’s action, is widely cited as a significant factor in a variety of ethical contexts. Many use it, for example, to distinguish terrorist acts from certain acts of war that may have similar results as side-effects. Yet Bennett and others have argued that its application is so arbitrary that if it can be used to cast certain harmful actions in (...) a more favorable light, then it can equally be manipulated to do the same for any kind of harmful action. In response, some have tried to block such extensions of the intend/foresee distinction by rejecting its application in cases where the relation between the plainly intended means and the harm is “too close”. This move, however, has been attacked as vague and obscure, and Bennett has argued that all the plausible candidates for explicating the idea of excessive closeness ultimately fail. In this paper, I develop and defend an account of excessive closeness with the aim of rescuing the intend/foresee distinction from such charges of arbitrariness. The account is based on the distinction between merely causal and constitutive relations among states of affairs, and I show both how it escapes Bennett’s objections to other accounts and how it applies to a variety of cases. Finally, I also examine Quinn’s alternative move of shifting the focus of the intend/foresee distinction in an attempt to sidestep the issue of closeness, and argue that it is not ultimately successful. In fact, Quinn’s view has shortcomings that can be resolved only by returning to an appeal to some notion of closeness, underscoring the need for the sort of account I offer. (shrink)

Suicide has long been the subject of philosophical, literary, theological and cultural–historical inquiry. But despite the diversity of disciplinary and methodological approaches that have been brought to bear in the study of suicide, we argue that the formal study of suicide, that is, suicidology, is characterized by intellectual, organizational and professional values that distinguish it from other ways of thinking and knowing. Further, we suggest that considering suicidology as a “social practice” offers ways to usefully conceptualize its epistemological, philosophical and (...) practical norms. This study develops the idea of suicidology as a social practice and considers the implications for research, practice and public discourse. (shrink)

There is perhaps no more widely shared conviction in contemporary metaethics, even among those who hold otherwise divergent views, than that practical normativity must be capable of being naturalized (i.e., captured fully within a metaphysically naturalist worldview). My aim is to illuminate the central reasons for skepticism about this. While certain naturalizing projects are plausible for very limited purposes, it is unlikely that any can provide everything we might reasonably want from an account of goodness and badness, rightness and wrongness, (...) and unqualified reasons for acting—at least if we are unwilling to accept certain deflationary or bullet-biting moves. Some naturalizing views can be shown to fail outright to capture the relevant normative facts or properties, while others have more promise but can also be seen to have certain limitations and costs, failing to capture elements that some of us take to be important to an adequate theory of practical normativity. There are, of course, far more naturalizing moves than can be considered here, so the aim is not to establish the truth of nonnaturalism through a process of elimination. But I hope to say enough to bring out the central worries about naturalizing projects and to pose some challenges that apply more widely, with the aim of showing that ethical nonnaturalism remains an attractive and well-motivated option at least for those of us who reject both nihilism and various forms of ethical deflation. (shrink)

Ethical realists hold that our ethical concepts, thoughts, and claims are in the business of representing ethical reality, by representing evaluative or normative properties and facts as aspects of reality, and that such representations are at least sometimes accurate. Non-naturalist realists add the further claim that ethical properties and facts are ultimately non-natural, though they are nonetheless worldly. My aim is threefold: to elucidate the sort of representation involved in ethical evaluation on realist views; to clarify what exactly is represented (...) and how non-naturalism comes into the picture for non-naturalists; and to defend worldly non-naturalism against some objections. The first question addressed is how we should model evaluation on any realist view, which should in turn guide the identification of which properties and facts are credibly regarded as ‘evaluative’ ones. Then the question is: what role might non-natural properties and facts play, and how are they related to what is represented in ethical evaluation? Once that is clear, we will be in a position to answer certain objections to non-naturalist realism from Jackson, Gibbard, Bedke, and Dreier. I argue that the objections all mischaracterize the role played by non-natural properties and facts on plausible versions of non-naturalist realism. (shrink)

I begin by distinguishing two general approaches to metaethics and ontology. One in effect puts our experience as engaged ethical agents on hold while independent metaphysical and epistemological inquiries, operating by their own lights, deliver metaethical verdicts on acceptable interpretations of our ethical lives; the other instead keeps engaged ethical experience in focus and allows our reflective interpretation of it to shape our metaphysical and epistemological views, including our ontology. While the former approach often leads to deflationary views, the latter (...) may lead us to enrich our metaethical picture as needed to capture robust objectivity and categorical normative authority for ethics. Assuming, as I have argued elsewhere, that this requires positing irreducibly evaluative or normative properties and facts, the question I take up here is what ontological implications this has. I argue against quietist non-naturalist views, which maintain that positing such properties and facts either has no ontological implications or has only domain-specific ontological implications that likewise imply nothing about what the world contains. Against these views, I advocate a worldly, dual-aspect view, locating irreducibly evaluative or normative properties as features of relevant worldly things. But while I have previously defended this view as a form of non-naturalism, I here explore the possibility of instead seeing it as a new, more expansive form of naturalism—what might be called “Non-Scientistic Naturalism”—inspired by parallel attempts in the philosophy of mind to accommodate irreducibly phenomenal properties within a more expansive physicalism. (shrink)

BackgroundWhen conducting research with Indigenous populations consent should be sought from both individual participants and the local community. We aimed to search and summarise the literature about methods for seeking consent for research with Indigenous populations.MethodsA systematic literature search was conducted for articles that describe or evaluate the process of seeking informed consent for research with Indigenous participants. Guidelines for ethical research and for seeking consent with Indigenous people are also included in our review.ResultsOf 1447 articles found 1391 were excluded (...) ; 56 were relevant and included. Articles were categorised into original research that evaluated the consent process or publications detailing the process of seeking consent and guidelines for ethical research. Guidelines were categorised into international ; national and state/regional/local guidelines. In five studies based in Australia, Canada and The United States of America the consent process with Indigenous people was objectively evaluated. In 13 other studies interpreters, voice recording, videos, pictures, flipcharts and “plain language” forms were used to assist in seeking consent but these processes were not evaluated. Some Indigenous organisations provide examples of community-designed resources for seeking consent and describe methods of community engagement, but none are evaluated. International, national and local ethical guidelines stress the importance of upholding Indigenous values but fail to specify methods for engaging communities or obtaining individual consent. In the ‘Grey literature’ concerns about the consent process are identified but no solutions are offered.ConclusionConsultation with Indigenous communities is needed to determine how consent should be sought from the community and the individual, and how to evaluate this process. (shrink)

This Element examines the many facets of ethical realism and the issues at stake in metaethical debates about it—both between realism and non-realist alternatives, and between different versions of realism itself. Starting with a minimal core characterization of ethical realism focused on claims about meaning and truth, we go on to develop a narrower and more theoretically useful conception by adding further claims about objectivity and ontological commitment. Yet even this common understanding of ethical realism captures a surprisingly heterogeneous range (...) of views. In fact, a strong case can be made for adding several more conditions in order to arrive at a proper paradigm of realism about ethics when understood in a non-deflationary way. We then develop this more robust realism, bringing out its distinctive take on ethical objectivity and normative authority, its unique ontological commitments, and both the support for it and some challenges it faces. (shrink)

Do the introspectively ascertainable aspects of our moral experiences carry ontological objective purport—portraying reality as containing worldly moral properties and facts, thus supporting moral realism? Horgan and Timmons answer this question in the negative, arguing that their non-realist view, cognitivist expressivism, can accommodate the introspectively ascertainable moral phenomenology just as well as realism can—where accommodating the phenomenology means accounting for it without construing it as misleading or erroneous. If sound, this constitutes an important defense of cognitivist expressivism, undermining a central (...) attraction of realism. They thus pose a challenge to realists to identify any aspects of moral phenomenology that cannot be accommodated by expressivism and instead favor realism. I here take up that challenge, in two stages. First, I argue that cognitivist expressivism does not after all capture certain important aspects of the phenomenology of the sort of moral experience on which they focus, while realism does. This argument does not depend on claiming that the phenomenology has ontological objective purport. The claim so far is just that there is more to categorical authoritativeness than the expressivist account captures, though this leaves the door open to Kantian rationalism as well as realism. Second, I will go on to argue that although some aspects of moral phenomenology may only point to this broader range of views, others do specifically carry ontological objective purport and thus directly support realism insofar as we take the phenomenology seriously. (shrink)

The famous ‘trolley problem’ began as a simple variation on an example given in passing by Philippa Foot , involving a runaway trolley that cannot be stopped but can be steered to a path of lesser harm. By switching from the perspective of the driver to that of a bystander, Judith Jarvis Thomson showed how the case raises difficulties for the normative theory Foot meant to be defending, and Thomson compounded the challenge with further variations that created still more puzzles (...) of broader interest. In recent years, her thought experiments have even been co-opted by psychologists engaged in the empirical study of moral judgment . Yet more than thirty years after launching the trolley problem, Thomson has now strikingly reversed course, retracting the very claim she had originally used to raise puzzles for Foot. I shall argue that this reversal is a mistake, leading to a needlessly counterintuitive, contrarian position about damage-control cases. Instead of overturning her earlier position, her new variations merely uncover a surprising insight about the conditions under which one may permissibly sacrifice another for a good end.1. The central case at issue is what Thomson now calls Bystander's Two Options: you are a bystander who sees a runaway trolley headed toward five innocent people who cannot move off the track; you cannot stop the trolley, but you have access to a switch that will divert it onto a side track where one innocent person is trapped. Is it permissible to throw the switch and divert the trolley toward lesser harm? The common answer, and Thomson's earlier one, is that it is: in cases like this, where there is a public threat and we can act on it so …. (shrink)

While differing widely in other respects, both neo-Humean and neo-Kantian approaches to normativity embrace an internalist thesis linking reasons for acting to potential motivation. This thesis pushes in different directions depending on the underlying view of the powers of practical reason, but either way it sets the stage for an attack on realist attempts to ground reasons directly in facts about value. How can reasons that are not somehow grounded in motivational features of the agent nonetheless count as reasons for (...) that particular agent, having genuine normative force for her? Won't any realist, externalist view threaten to alienate the individual from the reasons that obtain for her, particularly if she fails (even after rational deliberation) to care about the values that are supposed to ground them? I argue that such objections can successfully be answered, and that externalist views of reasons need not be plagued with normative alienation. Focusing largely on a recent debate between Williams and McDowell over the nature of normative reasons, I show that a value-based externalist theory, when properly conceived, can account for the normative relevance of reasons to the particular agents for whom they obtain. Moreover, Williams's own sophisticated neo-Humeanism turns out to be vulnerable to parallel charges of normative alienation, which it cannot escape without compromising the very psychologistic orientation that has been its chief attraction. Realist externalism about reasons turns out to be a more viable and attractive alternative to both neo-Humeanism and neo-Kantianism than many currently take it to be. (shrink)

As one component of a broader social and normative response to the problem of suicide, scientism served to minimize sociopolitical and religious conflict around the issue. As such, it embodied, and continues to embody, a number of interests and values, as well as serving important social functions. It is thus comparable with other normative frameworks and can be appraised, from an ethical perspective, in light of these values, interests, and functions. This work examines the key values, interests, and functions of (...) scientism in suicidology and argues that although scientism has had some social benefit, it primarily serves to maintain political and professional interests and has damaging implications for suicide research and prevention. (shrink)

Researchers are required to seek consent from Indigenous communities prior to conducting research but there is inadequate information about how Indigenous people understand and become fully engaged with this consent process. Few studies evaluate the preference or understanding of the consent process for research with Indigenous populations. Lack of informed consent can impact on research findings. The Picture Talk Project was initiated with senior Aboriginal leaders of the Fitzroy Valley community situated in the far north of Western Australia. Aboriginal people (...) were interviewed about their understanding and experiences of research and consent processes. Transcripts were analysed using NVivo10 software with an integrated method of inductive and deductive coding and based in grounded theory. Local Aboriginal interpreters validated coding. Major themes were defined and supporting quotes sourced. Interviews with Aboriginal leaders were facilitated by a local Aboriginal Community Navigator who could interpret if necessary and provide cultural guidance. Participants were from all four major local language groups of the Fitzroy Valley; aged 31 years and above; and half were male. Themes emerging from these discussions included Research—finding knowledge; Being respectful of Aboriginal people, Working on country, and Being flexible with time; Working together with good communication; Reciprocity—two-way learning; and Reaching consent. The project revealed how much more there is to be learned about how research with remote Aboriginal communities should be conducted such that it is both culturally respectful and, importantly, meaningful for participants. We identify important elements in community consultation about research and seeking consent. (shrink)

Introduction: characterizing ethical realismIt is useful to begin a survey of recent work on ethical realism with a look at current disputes over what makes a theory of ethics count as ‘realist’ in the first place. Nearly all characterizations of ethical realism include some version of the following two core claims: Ethical discourse is assertoric and descriptive: ethical claims purport to state ethical facts by attributing ethical properties to people, actions, institutions, etc., and are thus true or false depending on (...) whether their descriptions of things are accurate or not . 1 At least some ethical claims, when literally construed, are true in the above sense.Sayre-McCord maintains that these two conditions are necessary and sufficient to characterize ethical realism; others argue that further conditions must be added to yield ethical realism, or at least ‘paradigmatic’ or ‘robust’ ethical realism. Before turning to that, however, it is worth noting that some have recently denied that the above two conditions are even necessary for ethical realism. In probing new work on metaethical taxonomy, Miller argues that the core of ethical realism is simply the metaphysical commitment to objective ethical properties and facts, which is strictly independent of the semantic claims above. If one holds that there are objective facts about the wrongness of slavery, for example, then one ought to count as an ethical realist regardless of whatever views one might hold about the semantics of the contingent forms of discourse that have evolved among language users. Even if our ethical discourse turns out primarily to express conative states ), or all moral claims turn out to be false because …. (shrink)

An increasingly common form of naturalism associated with the study of morality is what might be called “scientific naturalism,” which takes as its subject matter various empirical phenomena associated with talk of “morality” and aims to subject them to scientific inquiry, just like any other empirical phenomena. This is unproblematic when it comes to scientific investigations into the origins of the human capacity for normative guidance or moral emotions, or the neurophysiology associated with moral feeling and behavior, but things get (...) much more complicated when it comes to the project of explaining our moral beliefs. It is, of course, an empirical phenomenon that we hold the moral beliefs we do, so it may seem obvious that this too can be causally explained using scientific tools. But, while there is room for scientific inquiry into causal factors, such as evolutionary influences, that have plausibly helped to shape many moral beliefs to some degree, it is a mistake to assume that our moral beliefs across the board can best be explained through appeal exclusively to scientifically accessible causes. This scientific naturalist exclusivity assumption is in fact deeply problematic, overlooking (or prematurely dismissing) the possibility that at least many of our moral beliefs are best explained through our grasping of good reasons for them – considerations we correctly understand as justifying them, though this is not something that shows up in scientific causal explanations. It is easy to miss this point about the potential role of the appreciation of justification by the believing mind when considering moral judgments simply from the external perspective of an amoral anthropologist, but it becomes clear when taking up the internal perspective of the committed moral agent, as when thinking about why we ourselves believe that human trafficking is wrong. This matters because, while science is invoked by those who purport to provide “debunking explanations” of our moral beliefs across the board (showing them to result simply from causal factors insensitive to any objective moral facts), they are actually relying on the scientific naturalist exclusivity assumption, thus begging the question against their opponents, who hold that we have knowledge of objective morality as a result of grasping good reasons for it. I explore these complexities surrounding the explanation of our moral beliefs and argue that while the picture advocated by debunkers remains a possibility, it is certainly not established by science, and recent arguments purporting to debunk the idea of knowable, objective morality fail. (shrink)

Allen Buchanan and Russell Powell have developed a rich ‘biocultural theory’ of the nature and causes of moral progress (and regress) for human beings conceived as evolved rational creatures with a nature characterized by ‘adaptive plasticity’. They characterize their theory as a thoroughly naturalistic account of moral progress, while bracketing various questions in moral theory and metaethics in favor of focusing on a certain range of more scientifically tractable questions under some stipulated moral and metaethical assumptions. While I am very (...) much in agreement with the substance of their project, I wish to query and raise some difficulties for the way it is framed, particularly in connection with the claim of naturalism. While their project is clearly naturalistic in certain senses, it is far from clear that it is so in others that are of particular interest in moral philosophy, and these issues need to be more carefully sorted out. For everything that has been argued in the book, the theory on offer may be only a naturalistic component of a larger theory that must ultimately be non-naturalistic in order to deliver the robust sort of account that is desired. Indeed, there are significant metaethical reasons for believing this to be the case. Moreover, if it turns out that some of the assumptions upon which their theory relies require a non-naturalist metaethics (positing irreducibly evaluative or normative properties and facts) then even the part of the theory that might have seemed most obviously naturalistic, i.e., the explanation of how changes in moral belief and behavior have come about, may actually require some appeal to non-naturalistic elements in the end. (shrink)

Contemporary approaches to the study of suicide tend to examine suicide as a medical or public health problem rather than a moral problem, avoiding the kinds of judgements that have historically characterised discussions of the phenomenon. But morality entails more than judgement about action or behaviour, and our understanding of suicide can be enhanced by attending to its cultural, social, and linguistic connotations. In this work, I offer a theoretical reconstruction of suicide as a form of moral experience that delineates (...) five distinct, yet interrelated domains of understanding: the temporal, the relational, the existential, the ontological, and the linguistic. Attention to each of these domains, I argue, not only enriches our understanding of the moral realm but also provides a heuristic for examining the moral traditions and practices that constitute contemporary understandings of suicide. (shrink)

Moral constructions of suicide are deliberately avoided in contemporary suicidology, yet morality persists, little or imperfectly acknowledged, in its practices and in the policies, discourses, and instruments that it underpins. This study used narrative methodologies to examine the normative force of suicidology and its implications for persons who had engaged in an act of nonfatal suicidal behavior. I interviewed a convenience sample of twelve persons from two inner–urban community mental health centers who were receiving crisis and case management services after (...) a recent act of nonfatal suicidal behavior. Interviews focused on events leading up to and after participants’ suicidal behavior; the responses their suicidal behavior generated in others, including family, friends, and the health professionals caring for them; and cultural views of suicide more broadly. Analysis of these interviews revealed that, although participants’ narratives were broadly consistent with a number of recognizable, canonical story formats common to our cultural repertoire of stories of suicide, they also revealed important tensions, divisions, conflicts, and challenges to contemporary suicidological discourse and practice. Despite evidence to suggest that biomedical understandings of suicide provided some therapeutic benefit to participants, they did not address important social and moral dimensions of human life or explore their connection to suicidal behavior—aspects of the suicidal event that were critical to its causation and to its retelling and “resolution.” The results of this study provide important insights into the moral features of suicidal behavior, the moral and ethical implications of suicide research, and the limitations of moral and ethical discourse in suicidology. (shrink)

Andreas Mogensen has recently argued that the current debate over evolutionary debunking in ethics is mired in confusion due to a simple fallacy committed by debunkers and uncritically taken on board by their opponents. I argue that no party to this debate is involved in the type of confusion and fallacy Mogensen has in mind, which he himself notes would be an absurd and outlandish mistake for anyone to make in other domains. Debunkers do plausibly commit an error in their (...) explanatory claims about our moral beliefs, and it is related to an issue Mogensen discusses, but it is not the confusion and fallacy he identifies. (shrink)

Despite widespread agreement that we have moral responsibilities to future generations, many are reluctant to frame the issues in terms of justice and rights.There are indeed philosophical challenges here, particularly concerning nonoverlapping generations. They can, however, be met. For example, talk of justiceand rights for future generations in connection with climate change is both appropriate and important, although it requires revising some common theoreticalassumptions about the nature of justice and rights. We can, in fact, be bound by the rights of (...) future people, despite the “non-identity problem,” and the force of these rights cannot be diluted by “discounting” future costs. Moreover, a rights-based approach provides an effective answer to political arguments against taking mandatory measures to curb greenhouse gas emissions when these are unpopular with a democratic populace. (shrink)

One of the distinguishing features of the ‘narrative turn’ in bioethics has been the question of authorship. For bioethicists and clinicians worried about the distorting and diminishing effects of an increasingly objective, dualistic, and value-free medicine, narrative has played a leading role in establishing the importance of patients’ stories to the therapeutic endeavor while calling attention to the inadequacies of biomedicine. Narrative is seen as a way of ceding patients the moral authority to tell their stories, while at the same (...) time recognizing the value of patients’ stories to clinical practice. Because illness is an embodied and, therefore, deeply personal experience, stories... (shrink)

The consent and community engagement process for research with Indigenous communities is rarely evaluated. Research protocols are not always collaborative, inclusive or culturally respectful. If participants do not trust or understand the research, selection bias may occur in recruitment, affecting study results potentially denying participants the opportunity to provide more knowledge and greater understanding about their community. Poorly informed consent can also harm the individual participant and the community as a whole. Invited by local Aboriginal community leaders of the Fitzroy (...) Valley, the Kimberley, Western Australia, The Picture Talk project explores the consent process for research. Focus groups of Aboriginal community members were conducted to establish preferences for methods of seeking individual consent. Transcripts were analysed through NVivo10 Qualitative software using grounded theory with inductive and deductive coding. Themes were synthesised with quotes highlighted. Focus groups with Aboriginal community members were facilitated by a Community Navigator as a cultural guide and interpreter and a researcher. Participants were recruited from all main language groups of the Fitzroy Valley – Gooniyandi, Walmajarri, Wangkatjungka, Bunuba and Nikinya. Participants were aged ≥18 years, with 5 female groups and one male group. Themes identified include: Reputation and trust is essential; The Community Navigator is key; Pictures give the words meaning – milli milli versus Pictures; Achieving consensus in circles; Signing for consent; and Research is needed in the Valley. Aboriginal communities of the Fitzroy Valley recommend that researchers collaborate with local leaders, develop trust and foster a good reputation in the community prior to research. Local Aboriginal researchers should be employed to provide cultural guidance throughout the research process and interpret local languages especially for elders. Pictures are preferred to written text to explain research information and most prefer to sign for consent. The Fitzroy Valley welcomes research when collaborative and for the benefit of the community. Future research could include exploring how to support young people, promote health screening and improve understanding of medical knowledge. (shrink)

Value judgements in research and political decision-making that exclude evidence for the social determinants of suicide suggest that evidence is not sufficient on its own to guide policy and practice, and that there is a lack of conceptual clarity with regard to decisions relating to the prioritization of problems, the allocation of resources, the translation of research into practice, as well as questions of responsibility for suicide prevention. In this work I seek to broaden conventional ethical debate about suicide through (...) the use of public health ethics frameworks. I argue that despite espousing a public health approach, current suicide prevention strategies are based largely on individual-level theorizing. This emphasis on the individual works to responsibilize individuals and communities for suicide prevention and directs attention away from public policy and systemic inequities. Given continued high rates of suicide, especially among disadvantaged social groups and communities, comprehensive government action is required to address the social and political determinants of suicide. Normative justification for action in realizing these ends is critical. I conclude by proposing one practicable form of action to make values and value judgements in suicide prevention explicit so that alternative forms of ethical and political recognition and responsibility are acknowledged. (shrink)

R. Srivatsan’s view of suicide as a historically specific event enfolded with meaning and Clare Shaw’s thoughtful elucidation of the transformative power of personal stories attest to the complexity and challenge of conducting research into the meanings and functions of narratives of suicide both methodologically and ethically. Because one of the aims of my original article was to bring narrative theories and methods to bear on issues relating to the ethical and political aspects of personal narrative within the practice of (...) suicidology, I hope this will again serve as a useful framework for responding to the commentaries and the specific challenges they present.Srivatsan’s call for a political view... (shrink)