Basic ethical principles in the conduct of biomedical and behavioral research involving human subjects

Moral postures concerning research involving human subjects are diverse in part because of the diversity of issues at stake in, for example, disputes over conflicts of rights and duties, concerning values, and with regard to duties to persons with interests in goods and values. I have presented three ethical principles around which to gather these questions: I) respect for human subjects as free agents; II) concern to foster the best interests of human subjects; and III) concern to maximize the benefits accruable to society. I have indicated that these three abstract considerations arise around four procedural foci for research involving humans: A) the requirement of free and informed consent of competent human subjects; B) the requirement of proxy consent from incompetent human subjects; C) the avoidance of coercion in the consent context; and D) an interest in having research involving humans redound to the general good of society. These are at best guidelines, or outlines, of the central ethical issues at stake. They must in each case of research be applied with care and followed with prudence. One can never have a means of simply deducing answers. Basic ethical principles represent, rather, our best attempt to map out the terrain of rights and values.