The Seduction of Ethics is an ethnographic work about relationships
between researchers and research-ethics commiĴ ees. In this book, Will C.
van den Hoonaard looks at formal research-ethics codes and how
countless administrators, researchers, scholars, and policy makers are
lured into their ambit. In Canada alone, ethics review is a $35 million
‘industry.’
What drives this seduction is not only a moral panic and a view
of people as vulnerable and needing protection, but also the public’s
desire for institutional accountability. The result is a systematic change
in the way social researchers conduct their work. Students increasingly
rely on ethics commiĴ ees for advice about social research methods, and
when such advice issues from commiĴ ees who have no expertise or
knowledge of those methods, social research becomes divorced from
its traditions. Social sciences disciplines begin to resemble one another
and the richness of conventional social research is lost as researchers
try to fi t their approach to the technical demands of ethics codes. These
inevitable changes are leading to a homogenization and pauperization
of social research.
The Seduction of Ethics off ers an analysis of the moral cosmology and
practices of ethics commiĴ ees in regard to research and researchers.
Using participant observation, records, interviews, and the scholarly
literature on the topic, the book explores the research-ethics review process itself. Van den Hoonaard reveals an idiosyncratic and inconsistent
world, where researchers employ particular strategies of avoidance or
partial or full compliance as they seek approval from ethics committees. In research-ethics commiĴ ees, he argues, administrative routines
oĞ en overwhelm thinking about substantive ethical issues.