Ethical Dilemmas About Consent and Epistemic Standing in Empirically Engaged Education Philosophy

• In Event: Philosophical Inquiry and Empirical Research

Abstract

Questions about informed consent and the epistemic standing of research participants present complicated ethical dilemmas, particularly in the context of community-based, collaborative research. As philosophers of education who have conducted research with and on community groups, the authors of this paper are especially attuned to the distinct ethical and epistemological concerns that this type of research raises. With just a few exceptions (e.g., Brydon-Miller, 2009), existing literature, professional codes of ethics, and institutional review boards do not adequately address these issues from a philosophic perspective. This paper aims to begin to fill this gap by responding to these questions:

• What does informed consent mean in the context of collaborative research, given that this model of research in many ways dissolves traditional differences between researcher and research participant/subject?

• What ethical issues arise related to the epistemic standing of participants in collaborative research, given that this research model seeks to respect the epistemological contributions of all participants while also meeting research norms that can warrant findings and conclusions?

The notion of informed consent is constructed on post-Enlightenment conceptions of the autonomous individual who is competent to reason for her/himself (Malone, et al., 2006; Schrag, 2010), and the Kantian prohibition on using individuals as means prevails. Informed consent additionally requires that individuals consenting must be shown to be competent, so maturity, sanity, intelligence, and knowledge are threshold conditions for someone to give informed consent. Yet the adequacy of these conditions is challenged by how these criteria are context dependent (Eckenwiler et al., 2008). These factors can become particularly vexing in collaborative research that takes place in the public domain, is integrated with political processes, and that deploys new digital media (Boler, 2008). How exactly can one delineate the experiences to which a participant is consenting? Also problematic are a range of issues connected to its individualistic, rational conception of the person (Brydon-Miller, 2008; 2009). A number of feminist philosophers have challenged the exclusion of emotions, feelings, and the relational basis of personhood in traditional ethics (e.g., Code, 1993; Collins, 2000; Jaggar, 1996; Young 2000), and these critiques need to be elaborated in the context of research ethics and informed consent.

With respect to the epistemic standing of research participants, collaborative research challenges the notion that knowledge production resides primarily with the researcher. Feminist epistemologies prioritize “borderland” forms of knowledge since one's social situation shapes what is/can and isn’t/cannot be known (Alcoff & Potter, 1993; Harding, 1993; Longino, 1996). With community-based research, those normally excluded from knowledge production play a leading role. Therefore different questions and analyses emerge, and the social, economic, and political status quo are more likely to be challenged (Alcoff, 1991; Bat-Ami, 1993). Epistemic standing is critical in the equitable production of knowledge, but it is not always clear how researchers may respect a variety of forms of knowledge given traditional university standards for warranted claims. This paper explores these issues from a philosophic perspective, and by drawing on the authors’ experiences conducting research with and on community groups.

Authors

• Ronald David Glass, University of California - Santa Cruz

• Anne Rebecca Newman, University of California - Santa Cruz