Institutional review boards have a dual goal: first, to protect the rights and welfare of human research subjects, and second, to support and facilitate the conduct of valuable research. In striving to achieve these goals, IRBs must often consider conflicting interests. In the discussion below, we characterize research oversight as having three elements: research regulations, which establish a minimum acceptable standard for research conduct; ethical principles, which help us identify and define relevant ethical issues; and virtue ethics, which guides the (...) prioritization of relevant issues. We describe specific ways in which the lessons of virtue ethics suggest revisions to the IRB structure and review process, the education and training of IRB members, and the appropriate limits of regulations in research ethics oversight. (shrink)

Provides an ideology-critique of Whitehead's and Hartshorne's metaphysics and demonstrates how their metaphysical principles reflect their personal commitments to the values and norms of the modern liberal political ideology.

Background: Brain-dead humans retain many of the physiologic functions of living humans, but they are legally dead and cannot be physically harmed by participation in research. Stakeholder opinions...

Mele questions the prevalence and ontological status of strong forms of self-deception, as well as our attempt at experimental demonstration. Without validated indicators outside laboratory contexts, statements about prevalence are purely speculative. Conceptualizing self-deception without positing the motivated lack of awareness of a contradictory belief is unsatisfactory in dealing with issues of “agency,” that is, how can we stop the processing of threatening information unless we recognize that the information is threatening?

Book reviewed in this article: Ethics in Social and Behavioral Research. By Edward Diener and Rick Crandall The Ethics of Social Intervention. Gordon Bermant, Herbert C. Kelman, Donald P. Warwick.

On the statute books, New Zealand has a strong regulatory system that protects nonhuman animals on farms. Animals are guaranteed the “Five Freedoms,” including freedom to express normal patterns of behavior. This theoretically strong protection is weakened considerably, however, through institutional structures and practices. A loophole in the law allowing practices that violate the Five Freedoms in “exceptional circumstances” is used frequently. The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry is the government agency that administers animal welfare regulation. This agency is also (...) responsible for increasing primary production, and the farming industry has undue influence with MAF. The National Animal Welfare Advisory Committee is appointed by MAF, and this group is also dominated by industry interests, with a view of animal welfare that excludes behavioral concerns. These factors result in a weakening of welfare requirements. Various solutions to increase protection are proposed, including a requirement that all science and public concerns be taken into account when making decisions on animal welfare and that animal welfare be regulated by an independent government body. (shrink)