THE UBIQUITY OF DECEPTION AND THE ETHICS OF DECEPTIVE RESEARCH

Does the fact that deception is widely practised – even though there is a general prohibition against deception – provide insight into the ethics of deceptive methods in research, especially for social-behavioral research? I answer in the affirmative. The ubiquity of deception argument, as I will ca...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Benham, Bryan (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Wiley-Blackwell 2008
In: Bioethics
Year: 2008, Volume: 22, Issue: 3, Pages: 147-156
Further subjects:B ethics of deception
B researcher-participant relationship
B Deception
B deceptive research
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Summary:Does the fact that deception is widely practised – even though there is a general prohibition against deception – provide insight into the ethics of deceptive methods in research, especially for social-behavioral research? I answer in the affirmative. The ubiquity of deception argument, as I will call it, points to the need for a concrete and nuanced understanding of the variety of deceptive practices, and thus promises an alternative route of analysis for why some deception may be permissible in social-behavioral research. As an alternative argument it also promises to break the stalemate that emerges in debates on the ethics of deceptive methods in social-behavioral research. In the current paper I (1) motivate and articulate the ubiquity argument in order to clarify the significance of ubiquity and discharge some initial objections. Then, on the recommendations of the ubiquity argument, I (2) highlight the importance of interpersonal relationships for understanding the ethics of deception. Following this insight I (3) provide an analysis of several features of the researcher-participant relationship relevant to the understanding of the ethics of deception in research. I then (4) conclude the argument with some recommendations for the ethical use of deceptive methods in social-behavioral research.
ISSN:1467-8519
Contains:Enthalten in: Bioethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8519.2007.00619.x