Abstract
Research ethics committees in Germany usually don’t have philosophers as members and if so, only contingently, not provided for by statute. This is interesting from a philosophical perspective, assuming that ethics is a discipline of philosophy. It prompts the question what role philosophers play in those committees they can be found in. Eight qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted to explore the self-perception of philosophers regarding their contribution to research ethics committees. The results show that the participants generally don’t view themselves as ethics experts. They are rather unanimous on the competencies they think they contribute to the committee but not as to whether those are philosophical competencies or applied ethical ones. In some cases they don’t see a big difference between their role and the role of the jurist member. In the discussion section of this paper I bring up three topics, prompted by the interviews, that need to be addressed: (1) I argue that the interviewees’ unwillingness to call themselves ethics experts might have to do with a too narrow understanding of ethics expertise. (2) I argue that the disagreement among the interviewees concerning the relationship between moral philosophy and applied ethics might be explained on a theoretical or on a practical level. (3) I argue that there is some lack of clarity concerning the relationship between ethics and law in research ethics committees and that further work needs to be done here. All three topics, I conclude, need further investigation.
Highlights
During the last decades, the importance of ethics committees has been continuously rising in industrial nations
Concerning Germany, it makes sense to differentiate between three kinds of ethics committees: ethics councils, like the Deutscher Ethikrat whose purpose is to offer political counsel about substantial matters; health care ethics committees (HCECs), 1 3 Vol.:(0123456789)
Some of the participants have experience working in other types of ethics committees, such as HCECs, which they were asked about but which was of no significance for recruitment
Summary
The importance of ethics committees has been continuously rising in industrial nations This rise can be seen as a reaction to the rapid increase of new fields of action calling for novel decisions due to technological progress. Whether ethics committees are successful in answering this call by providing the called-for ethics—and if so, what kind of understanding of ethics their work is based on. The fact that these committees have ethics in their name suggests that the discussion of ethical problems is at least. Concerning Germany, it makes sense to differentiate between three kinds of ethics committees: ethics councils, like the Deutscher Ethikrat whose purpose is to offer political counsel about substantial matters; health care ethics committees (HCECs),
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