Inducements revisited

Bioethics

Volumn 13, Issue 2, 1999, Pages 114-130

  Wilkinson, Martin ^a   Moore, Andrew ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; COMMERCIAL PHENOMENA; CONTRACT; FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT; HUMAN RIGHTS; MEDICAL RESEARCH; RESOURCE ALLOCATION; SALARY;

EID: 0032813804     PISSN: 02699702     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/1467-8519.00136     Document Type: Article

References (21)

1. Martin Wilkinson and Andrew Moore, 'Inducements in Research' Bioethics 11 (1997).
2. For the only exceptions we have thought of, see Wilkinson and Moore, 'Inducement in Research', p. 388.
3. We should perhaps qualify 'non-contractual' by 'probably', since there may be jurisdictions in which the relationship is contractual. The substantive point is that we do not think inducements are required, merely permitted.
4. See Derek Parfit's discussion of the levelling down objection to equality and the distinction between equality and giving priority to the worst off in 'Equality or Priority' The Lindley Lecture (University of Kansas Press, Lawrence, KS, 1995).
5. Paul McNeill, 'Paying People to Participate in Research: Why Not?' Bioethics 11 (1997), p. 394
6. Wilkinson and Moore, 'Inducement in Research', p. 383.
7. See Robert Nozick's objections to patterned distributions in ch. 7 of Anarchy, State, and Utopia, (Blackwell, Oxford, 1974).
8. We make a general comment here: some of our arguments turn on whether some matter or another is properly within the purview of an ethics committee. It is important to distinguish ethics committees the institutions from ethics committees qua things that consider matters of research ethics. Some committees qua institutions deal with other matters, e.g. managing research. They might, quite properly, want to bear in mind some of the effects we think irrelevant to research ethics.
9. Warnings against attempts to apply principles of justice independently of social roles can be found in Brian Barry's Justice as Impartiality, (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1995), developing John Rawls's focus on the basic structure rather than individual duties.
10. Some would dissent from this description on the grounds that the option to volunteer for free is altered by having the option to receive inducements. We discuss this view in the section on commodification.
11. One question for those who dislike commercialization of research is whether and why it is acceptable to pay researchers if it is not acceptable to pay subjects.
12. 'There is a tradition that healthy volunteer subjects should engage in research for purely idealistic or educational motives.' 'Guidelines on the practice of ethics committees in medical research involving human subjects' (3rd ed.), (Royal College of Physicians, London, 1996), p. 29.
13. Compare Titmuss's discussion of blood donation in chapter 5 of his famous book The Gift Relationship, (Pelican, Harmondsworth, 1973).
14. Of course, it may be undesirable because it would involve exploitation or extorted consent, but these are separate worries which we have dealt with elsewhere. Our question here is whether there is anything bad about commodification that is not reducible to these other objections.
15. In our discussion we overlook the complications created by the likelihood that people's attitudes to payment for research would depend on the type of research in question. We also overlook the difficulties caused by the collective action problems that may face attempts by ethics committees to bring about the desired norms; presumably it would take the actions of more than one committee to do this.
16. See e.g. Gerald Dworkin's 'Is More Choice Better than Less?' in his The Theory and Practice of Autonomy, (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1988).
17. The idea is that if it is sufficient for x's having changed that some predicate F applies to x at some time and does not apply to x at some other time, then some changes will not be real changes but merely Cambridge changes. Here is Peter Geach's example: 'Socrates would change posthumously (even if he had no immortal soul) every time a fresh schoolboy came to admire him.' See God and Soul, (Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1969), p. 72. Geach says he has no idea how to give a philosophical analysis of the difference between real and mere Cambridge changes.
18. We leave aside the question of whether this transformation would be a good thing.
19. See Thomas Hurka, Perfectionism, (Clarendon Press, Oxford,1993), pp. 150-1.
20. The reason here is essentially that offered against minimum wage rates more generally: by putting up the price of labour relative to other factors of production, the effect of minimum wages is to deny jobs at the margins to those least desirable to employers; that is, those who likely need the jobs the most. Unfortunately, we do not have the space to establish a position in any detail on minimum wage rates or, indeed, maximum and differential rates.
21. We would like to thank Tim Mulgan, Charlotte Paul, Jim Thornton, and audiences at the Universities of Auckland and Otago for their helpful comments.