THEORIA, 2020, 86, 3–8

doi:10.1111/theo.12226

Editorial
Does Research Ethics Apply to Us?

WHEN ETHICAL REVIEW OF research proposals was introduced in the 1970s and
1980s, it met with harsh and vociferous resistance. Researchers in the social sci-
ences and humanities contended that any prior ethical review of their research
constituted a serious threat to academic freedom. Important academic organiza-
tions protested against ethical reviewing, and prominent researchers spent most of
their time campaigning against it (Schrag, 2010). In the 1990s, resistance
receded, but it has been revitalized in the last ten years or so. Books and articles
criticizing the review system have been published, and meetings have convened
in order to create an international front against it (Dingwall, 2006; Schrag, 2010;
van den Hoonard, 2011; Iphofen, 2017; Sluka, 2018). Ethical review of social sci-
ences and the humanities has been described as “censorship” (Bell and Elliott,
2014), “unethical” and “anti-democratic” (Dingwall, 2006), “founded on igno-
rance, haste, and disrespect” (Schrag, 2010, p. 192), and as an “ethics rupture”
(Iphofen, 2017). Some critics have even claimed that ethical review may cause
the social sciences to “wither away” (van den Hoonard, 2011, p. 286).
The most prominent arguments against ethical review in the social sciences
and humanities can be summarized as follows:

No danger: Contrary to medical research, research in the social sciences and

humanities does not expose research subjects (research participants) to any
dangers.
Unforeseeable effects: Contrary to studies in other areas, such as medicine,
research processes in the social sciences and humanities are so unpredictable that
potential ethical problems, if there are any, cannot be known beforehand.
Academic freedom: Ethical review violates the freedom of speech and aca-
demic freedom in general.
It is allowed if it is not research: Many of the activities for which academic
researchers need a permit, such as questionnaires and interviews under false pre-
tence, can be performed legally by non-researchers, without ethical review.
Let us consider each of these arguments in turn.

No danger?
Opponents of ethical review in the social sciences and humanities claim that con-
trary to medical research, these disciplines do not pose any real dangers to
research subjects.

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4 SVEN OVE HANSSON

H[umanities and] S[ocial] S[cience] researchers do nothing that begins to compare with injecting
someone with potentially toxic green stuff that cannot be neutralised or rapidly eliminated from
their body if something goes wrong. At most there is a potential for causing minor and reversible
emotional distress or some measure of reputational damage. However, these are risks that research
participants are well able to assess for themselves. All HSS research is based on the same methods
that ordinary people use in their everyday life: observing other people, asking them questions,
reading documents or looking at pictures. (Dingwall, 2008, p. 3)

Another critic says that in order to justify ethical reviewing, there must be “a
proven record of abuses”, and “no such record exists for the social sciences and
humanities” (Schrag, 2011, p. 123). That, however, is not true. Although the dis-
cussions that led up to the introduction of ethical reviews had their main focus on
a series of highly problematic medical research projects (Beecher, 1966), several
studies in the social sciences contributed significantly to public concern about the
ethical conduct of academic research. The most famous of these studies was the
so-called tearoom trade study, in which a social scientist under cover observed
people involved in sexual activity, shadowed them to their homes, and later inter-
viewed them under the pretence of a public health survey (von Hoffman, 1970;
Babbie, 2004). Many other social science studies were criticized at the time for
unethical practices. A paper published in 1967 provided the following list:

In recent years, a handful of studies have been reported in the literature based on the work of
observers who deliberately misrepresented their identity in order to enter an otherwise inaccessible
social situation. Some of these studies have already provoked a good deal of comment – among
them, for instance, the cases of the anthropologist who posed as a mental patient by complaining
of symptoms he did not feel, the sociologists who joined a gathering of religious mystics by prof-
essing convictions they did not share, the Air Force officer who borrowed a new name, a new birth
date, a new personal history, a new set of mannerisms and even a new physical appearance in
order to impersonate an enlisted man, and the group of graduate students who ventured into a
meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous wearing the clothes of men from other social classes than their
own and the facial expressions of men suffering from an unfortunate disability. (Erikson, 1967,
p. 367; see also Fitzgerald, 2004, pp. 321–322)

Today, ethical review boards regularly deal with database studies that combine
individual data from different sources in ways that may intrude on the subjects’
privacy, interviews with victims of serious crimes such as rapes and war crimes,
who may potentially need psychological help after the interview, and various
studies in which it is part of the research design to keep the subjects less than
fully informed of the purpose of the research. In some cases, such as research on
terrorism and organized crime, human lives may be at stake. In 2007 the Eco-
nomic and Social Research Council in Britain had to withdraw its call for
research on “Combating Terrorism by Countering Radicalism” in a programme
funded by the Foreign Office, after academic organizations warned that the
programme’s connections with British counter-terrorism activities could endanger

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the lives of researchers working in the field. It is now generally recognized that
research on terrorism and other violent activities can put the lives of both
researchers and informants at risk (Gorriti, 1991; Attwood, 2007; Mills et al.,
2019). The claim that research in the social sciences poses no danger to research
subjects cannot be upheld.

Unforeseeable effects
Some critics claim that research in the social sciences cannot be reviewed before-
hand because it is much less foreseeable than research in natural and medical
science:

[Q]ualitative researchers often begin their work not knowing what they will find, or even what
questions they will form. The ethical problems they do encounter may be equally surprising, so
that ethics review prior to fieldwork both wastes their time and fails to address the challenges that
do emerge. (Schrag, 2011, p. 128)

Consequently, Schrag proposes that instead of ethical reviews, social scientists

should “instill ethics at other points, starting with methodological and ethical
training” and also including “that time-honored response to misconduct: griev-
ance” (Schrag, 2011, p. 128). However, the contrast he tries to draw with natural
and medical science is not accurate. For instance, clinical trials often give rise to
surprising results, such as unexpected side effects of a treatment. Since the nature
of such effects cannot be foreseen, no detailed plan can be made for dealing with
them. Instead, clinical trials are required to have a procedure for early discovery
and evaluation of unexpected findings, including preparedness to stop the trial if
necessary (Whitehead, 2004). One of the functions of the ethical review of clini-
cal trials is to make sure that adequate procedures of this nature are in place.
Unexpected ethical problems in social research can and should be dealt with in
the same way.

Academic freedom
Some researchers have claimed that ethical review, in particular in the humanities
and social sciences, violates the freedom of speech and/or academic freedom.
(The distinction between these two freedoms has often been blurred in these dis-
cussions.) Although much promoted by some academics, these claims do not
have much substance.
The freedom of speech includes a right to publish the results of one’s investiga-
tions, but it does not per se include a freedom to perform investigations. Aca-
demic freedom includes a right to perform research, but it does not provide
academic researchers with a right to use other human beings for that purpose
without their consent or with consent obtained under false pretence. Academic

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6 SVEN OVE HANSSON

freedom is not a freedom to infringe on other people’s freedom or to deceive or

exploit them.

“It is allowed if it is not research”

Academics are only one of many groups in modern societies who professionally
perform investigations and search for information. In many cases, non-academic
investigators have liberties that academic researchers do not have. Journalists
often deceive interviewees about the purpose of an interview, and unlike aca-
demic interviewers they can usually do this with impunity. Companies performing
marketing research do not have to submit their questionnaires to ethical review.
They can also collect large amounts of personal information from customers’ pur-
chases and web searches, and sell this information to other companies. The police
and some private organizations make CCTV recordings in public and semi-public
places. Police and intelligence agencies wire-tap telephones, intercept online
communications, and sometimes plant covert listening devices in people’s homes.
Why, then, are researchers so stifled by regulations and review boards? Some
scholars consider it unfair that they have to submit their research proposals to eth-
ical review boards, when non-researchers can perform similar investigations with-
out ethical review.

Ethical regulation is becoming a smokescreen behind which our rivals in social investigation and
commentary can proceed unchecked, while those of us whose practice is disciplined by a profes-
sional ethic and a regulative ideal of truth-telling are handicapped in our access to the public
realm. (Dingwall, 2008, p. 6)

However, the fact that one group of professionals is allowed to collect informa-
tion in a particular way is not a sufficient reason for allowing another group of
professionals to do the same. For instance, journalism and social research have
quite different purposes and therefore also widely divergent timeframes, modi
operandi, and mechanisms for checks and controls. Presumably, few academics
would be willing to work under a managing editor who decides what can and can-
not be published. On the other hand, meetings with ethical review boards cannot
easily be fitted into the timeframes of day-to-day journalism. Criminologists and
terrorism researchers interviewing habitual lawbreakers have freedoms that the
police do not have, such as a freedom to refrain from reporting specific informa-
tion that they obtain about serious crimes to the prosecutor. But on the other
hand, police officers extracting information from the same offenders can use
investigative methods that are inaccessible to criminologists. As these examples
show, differences in investigative purpose and in the social roles of investigators
justify different rights and obligations. Investigative practices to be applied in

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 EDITORIAL 7

academic research have to be justified with reference to the specific purposes and
roles of scientific and scholarly research.

Socially responsible research

In conclusion, none of the above-mentioned four arguments against ethical review
of the social sciences and humanities provides any reason to abolish the review
system for these disciplines. We have also noted that there are potential ethical
problems in research in these disciplines, which justify the review system. The
system is by no means perfect, and much can be done to better accommodate the
diverse and shifting research practices in the many disciplines that it covers. How-
ever, exempting entire faculties from ethical review of their dealings with research
subjects is not a way forward.
The ethical requirements for academic research must also be seen in a wider
perspective, beyond the pros and cons of individual research projects: The activi-
ties performed in scientific research have to be publicly justifiable and gain social
acceptance. The public standing of science is far from secure, and it can be
threatened if research subjects are harmed, deceived or disrespected by
researchers. High ethical standards are necessary to minimize the risk that essen-
tial scientific activities such as clinical trials, research questionnaires and partici-
pant observation will become difficult or impossible to perform (Hansson, 2011).
Our ethical performance is a joint responsibility for the research community as a
whole, which is the reason why it is a suitable task for committees of researchers.
All of this is important for philosophers for at least two reasons. Philosophers
are increasingly engaged in research involving questionnaires, interviews and
even participant observation. We should uphold high ethical standards in our own
research. Even more importantly, philosophers often have central roles in the sys-
tem for ethical review. Hopefully, we can contribute to a better understanding of
the ethical review system and its role in the relationship between academic
research and the societies in which it is performed.
Sven Ove Hansson

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