Shading the truth in seeking informed consent for research purposes.
I want to argue for two propositions. First, I suggest that what some researchers may take to be a simple trade-off between minor violations of the truth for the sake of access to far greater truths represents a profound miscalculation with far-reaching and cumulative reverberations. Second, I submit that today's research environment, as demanding, competitive, and sometimes bewildering as it is, offers genuine scope for what Murdoch calls truth-seeking, for imaging and questioning, and for relating to facts through both truth and truthfulness; but that, in so doing, it presents hard choices with respect to methods, and, in turn, to personal integrity--not only in particular research projects but also with respect to that fragile research environment in its own right.
Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, Cambridge, MA, USA.
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D035041:Anonymous Testing; D035841:Behavioral Research; D032781:Codes of Ethics; D030881:Disclosure; D028744:Ethics Committees, Research; D004992:Ethics, Medical; D006801:Humans; D007258:Informed Consent; D009014:Morals; D012106:Research / Q000592:standards*; D035842:Research Subjects; D035844:Researcher-Subject Relations; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012945:Social Values; D035502:Trust; D014342:Truth Disclosure; D014481:United States; D028722:Virtues