Systems of Ethical Approval and Formal Ethical Scrutiny

Abstract

In many respects the substance of this chapter represents the inspiration for this book. But it is only possible to fully address the issues associated with formal ethical review when all of the issues contained in the previous chapters have been covered. The steady growth of ethical scrutiny in social research became the motive for a fuller discussion of the issues upon which such scrutiny is based and which so occupies the concern of social researchers in its potential to obstruct and disrupt their main goal — their mission to research the social world. I made my position clear in Chapter 1 that good research can only be done by good researchers who are ethically aware. This does not mean that I uncritically condone the growth of formal ethical scrutiny, but neither do I crudely condemn it. My argument is that we need to understand and manage it for the benefit of productive social science.

The trouble with you health people is that you’re always thinking that these review committees are about ethics … this has nothing to do with ethics — it’s about management.

(An overheard comment made by the Vice Chancellor of a UK University to a Dean of a Faculty of Health)