Online research in philosophy

Medicine in the twenty-first century is increasingly reliant on research to guarantee the safety and efficacy of medical interventions. As a result, the need to understand the ethical issues that research generates is becoming essential. This volume introduces the principal areas of concern in research on human subjects, offering a framework for understanding research ethics, and the relationship between ethics and compliance. Research Ethics brings together leading scholars in bioethics and the topics covered include the unique concerns that arise in (...) specific areas of research such as gene therapy and stem cell research. Individual chapters also address the ethical issues that arise when conducting research with specific populations such as infants or adolescents, and the volume looks at important emerging issues in human subjects research, namely financial conflicts of interest and the interpretation of scientific data. (shrink)

This article addresses the impact of the potential conflict between the roles of physicians who are both clinicians and researchers on the recruitment of persons into research trials. It has been proposedthat a physician breaches inter-role confidentiality when he or she uses information gathered in his or her clinical role to inform patients about trials for which they may be eligible and that clinician-researchers should adopt a model of preliminary consent to be approached about research prior to commencing a clinical (...) relationship. This article argues that even if we grant the legitimacy of inter-role confidentiality (which is open to question), there are circumstances in which other obligations physicians bear override the obligation of inter-role confidentiality. Moreover, it is argued that the practice of preliminary consent is morally suspect and that such consent cannot be deemed valid. The article concludes with a series of recommendations of ways in which the legitimate concern regarding the conflicting roles of clinician-researchers can be addressed in the recruitment stage of research. (shrink)

Bioethical decision-making depends on presuppositions about the function and goal of bioethics. The authors in this issue of The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy share the assumption that bioethics is about resolving cases, not about moral theory, and that the best method of bioethical decision-making is that which produces useful answers. Because we have no universally agreed upon background moral theory which can serve as the basis for bioethical decision-making, they try to move bioethics away from theory. For them, a (...) good method of bioethical decision-making is one which resolves cases in ways that are justifiable to the parties involved, not necessarily in ways that bring us "close" to the right and the true. The authors consider how the move away from theory and toward actual cases is best accomplished. In particular, the debate in this issue is about specification, specified principlism, and casuistry. (shrink)