RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Ethics committees, principles and consequences.
JF Journal of Medical Ethics
JO J Med Ethics
FD BMJ Publishing Group Ltd and Institute of Medical Ethics
SP 81
OP 85
DO 10.1136/jme.24.2.81
VO 24
IS 2
A1 M Häyry
YR 1998
UL http://jme.bmj.com/content/24/2/81.abstract
AB When ethics committees evaluate the research proposals submitted to them by biomedical scientists, they can seek guidance from laws and regulations, their own beliefs, values and experiences, and from the theories of philosophers. The starting point of this paper is that philosophers can only be helpful to the members of ethics committees if they take into account in their models both the basic moral intuitions that most of us share and the consequences of people's choices. A moral view which can be labelled as a consequentialist interpretation of mid-level principlism is developed, defended and applied to some real-life and hypothetical research proposals.