2.1 Why are Research Ethics important?
Most of the interesting questions in life are about people, and as a result a lot of research is done into people: how they behave, what they think, and how they learn and communicate. As a subject for research, human beings are of course quite different to a chemical in a test tube or a rock sample. The moral value of human life requires us to treat others with respect for their wellbeing.
Watch the following short video: Robert Levine (Yale School of Medicine) on the importance of ethics for research involving human subjects.
Activity 5: Thinking about research ethics (20 minutes)
What kind of research do you want to do? What might the impact on human subjects be? Think of three ethical issues that might be raised by the research you want to carry out. Share these in the Discourse forum and review the contributions of others. Comment on someone else’s if you find something surprising or interesting – or just make your own notes.