Página 231 - Dimensiones éticas de las regulaciones en salud

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This is not to suggest that such research should not occur; there is already
good warrant to support if not require it. It is only to point out that those
charged with review of such research need to refrain from the kind of
facile and often fatuous ruminations that too often pass under the name
“ethics review.” It is, as above and throughout, time for ethics committees
to attend to ethics.
Conclusion
A favorite and productive approach in introductory philosophy courses is
to challenge students by asking them, firstly, “Why do you believe what
you believe (and not something else)?”; and, secondly, “Under what cir-
cumstances would you – should you – change a belief?” This is, of course,
a demand for reasons. Opinions, rules and intuitions are inadequate in
both ethics and science. What we have tried to do here is defend a suite
of propositions which are widely accepted and suggest that they point to
an expanded mandate for research ethics committees. We can list these
propositions as follows:
Ethics and morality precede laws and regulations t
Regulatory algorithms can mask or hide ethical grounding t
Human subject protection must emphasize t reasons for rules
If a series of propositions is reckoned to be uncontroversial, then it is not
unreasonable to infer that a conclusion will also be uncontroversial. (Or
more or less, anyway. The foregoing would need to be fleshed out to make
it a formal argument.) In any case, our conclusion –ethics committees
should do more ethics– is likely not something that should invite much
opposition in any case. The goal of the argument was in many respects
quite modest, namely, to suggest that laws and regulations by their nature
cannot explicitly anticipate or govern all future circumstances. Sooner or
later, a judgment is required. Research ethics committees are perfectly
suited to render such judgments. Indeed, in many cases they are doing so
already, albeit with inadequate training and support.