Continuing with the theme of protecting the autonomy of test subjects, then, it is considered to be entirely the choice of subject when and how much information about their participation in the experiment will be made public. The Hippocratic Oath does also require healers to protect the privacy of their patients. If, for example, participation in the experiment is the only way to get some good (health care, monetary compensation in a poor neighborhood, a good grade in a class, advancement in their job, etc.) which they really need or want, the situation itself may deprive them of their ability freely to say no – and therefore yes, freely. It is important when thinking about informed consent to make sure that the subjects really have the ability to exercise fully free will in their decision to give consent. The information part does not have to tell every detail of the experimental design, but it must give every possible consequence that the researchers can imagine. What this means is that they must be informed of all of the possible consequences, positive and (most importantly) negative, of participation in the study, and then given the right to decide if they want to participate. In the case of human subject experimentation, this is thought of as meaning that researchers must never knowingly harm their patients, and must in fact let the patients decide what they consider harm to be.Ĭontinuing with the idea of letting subjects decide what harms they are willing to experience or risk, one of the most important ethical principles for human subject research is that test subjects must be asked for informed consent. It does seem like good general idea, in any case, that those who have power and authority over others should, at the very least, not harm them. This principle is often thought of as constraining doctors and other care-givers, which is why, for example, the American Medical Association forbids doctors from participation in executions, even when they are legal in certain jurisdictions in the United States. One feature, often thought to be part of the Oath, does not exactly appear in the traditional text but is probably considered the most important promise: First, do no harm. It also has the odd requirements that physicians not use a knife, and will remain celibate, etc. I swear by Apollo the physician, and Asclepius, and Hygieia and Panacea and all the gods and goddesses as my witnesses that. This is actually not that strange, since it sounds quite odd and archaic 11 to modern ears – it begins The Hippocratic Oath, a version of which is thought in popular culture to be sworn by all modern doctors, is actually not used much at all today in its original form. If, for example, some subjects were willing and chose to experience some negative consequences from being in a study, that might be alright, but it is never to be left up to the researcher. In particular, a utilitarian calculus of the greatest good for the greatest number might be appealing to some, but modern philosophers of experimental ethics generally do not allow the researchers to make that decision themselves. Therefore the below principles should always be taken as from the point of view of the test subjects, or as if they were designed to create systems which protect those subjects. The ethical principles for human subject research which we give below are largely based on the idea of respecting the humanity and autonomy of the test subjects, since the lack of that respect seems to be the crucial failure of many of the generally acknowledged unethical experiments in history. In fact, history has many (far too many) examples of experiments done on human subjects which did not respect their humanity and autonomy – see, for example, the Wikipedia page on unethical human experimentation. Even beyond these difficulties, they are hard because human subjects just don’t do what we tell them, and seem to want to express their free will and autonomy. \)Įxperiments with human subjects are technically hard to do, as we have just seen, because of things like the Placebo Effect.
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