So as a person who works around ethical issues on some days (on many others I work around practical operational issues like, "Why can't I access the online survey?!?"), I keep up with some random blogs out there. Today, I read an interesting blurb on Practical Ethics, a website I sort-of read but which doesn't usually seem so "practical" to me. (It's practical compared to some of the Great Big Ethical questions though.)
The author purports, in a really open and fairly engaging fashion, that people do not have a right to not be offended. Basically, there's no right that you can assert to tell people that they can't be mean to you. Now, that's interesting in the sense that there are freedom of speech issues and implications for things like hate crimes (i.e., there is a "practical" part of this ethical exercise). So if I do have a right not to be offended, then that means someone else does not have the right of free speech - they don't have the right to, as the author suggests, say "Oy pigface! You smell like a rat’s backside!" (It's a British website.) If I don't have the right to be not-offended, then is there any defense of a victim of hate-speech against the attacker who is just basically be offensive?
Now, why am I posting this on my IRB blog? I think there's an implication to this discussion for a lot of social behavioral (SB) IRB work. Often, SB IRB's are accused of putting up silly road blocks to research in the name of protecting subjects from minimal risk surveys. Sometimes this takes the form of IRBs arguing that subjects have a right not to be bothered - which can limit recruitment avenues like cold calling if someone decides that cold-calling violates that right to be left alone. Sometimes this takes the form of hyper-concern about study topics that might be offensive or disturbing to some of the subjects.
There are solutions to each of these issues, but as with all IRB-concerns, these solutions require people on both side of the table to be open to working together. And that means that both sides of the table need to be able to talk in the same language and from the same place of concern. Recognizing that an IRB member or administrator is concerned about violating a "right not to be offended" is important when trying to convince them that cold-calling is acceptable or that a topic is not radical or offensive for a subject population. Since that right is sometimes thought to be an integral component of the respect-for-persons ethos that IRBs uphold, an informed researcher (or research administrator that a brilliant and well-funded researcher has hired to deal with the IRB *cough, cough*) can help keep those lines of communication open by probing to discover what exactly the IRB member considers that "right" to entail. There are also opportunities for actual research (or use of already conducted research) on what the "everyday" experience of individuals is - is cold calling normal in the age of cell phones and do not call lists? Remember, IRB members make decisions based on their experience in the absence of facts provided by researchers. I'm not saying that providing those facts will necessarily change their minds or force their hands, but it can provide a starting point for a discussion on what rights are actually part of the "real world" for the subjects.
Personally, I think I would have to say that I don't believe an IRB has a responsibility to enforce a right not to be offended in order to satisfy respect-for-persons. Respect-for-persons also means respecting the rights of individuals to act as free thinking adults, capable of making decisions when presented with complete information. Heck, that ability is one of the foundational principles in the doctrine of informed consent! In DHHS IRB regulations, IRB's are mandated to minimize risk (45 CFR 46.111(a)(1)), not eliminate it. The same regulations define minimal risk as meaning "the probability and magnitude of harm or discomfort ... are not greater in and of themselves than those ordinarily encountered in daily life." (45 CFR 46.102). I think here are some risks of offense inherent in everyday life and that IRB's have a responsibility to ensure that researchers are held to a standard consistent with the subjects' everyday experience. For a cold-calling recruitment plan, this could include keeping an eye on the max number of calls in a certain period, the type of message left ("Hi, This is Beth from XXX University." vs "Hi, This is Beth, with the AIDS clinic at XXX University."), the existence and use of a "do not call" list for a department or lab, etc.
There are alternate ways of thinking about this issue though. Perhaps researchers have a fiduciary duty to take care of subjects (as has been suggested by some courts) beyond the care we extend to others in everyday life - and this might even include respecting the right not to be offended. Perhaps researchers just owe more-than-common courtesy to individuals whom they are asking to volunteer to provide data for the researcher's study. Either of these could justify the enforcement of a "right not to be offended" under the umbrella of respect-for-persons.
Edited to add this link: I know I didn't talk much about it, but maybe researchers should be held to a higher standard than "everyday" life when we talk about minimizing risk. In the "real world" businesses don't have an obligation to minimize risk, so maybe that's the reason a right not to be offended should be part of an ethical study design? Prompted by a quick post over at Global Bioethics.
Edited to add this link: I know I didn't talk much about it, but maybe researchers should be held to a higher standard than "everyday" life when we talk about minimizing risk. In the "real world" businesses don't have an obligation to minimize risk, so maybe that's the reason a right not to be offended should be part of an ethical study design? Prompted by a quick post over at Global Bioethics.
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