Benham Bryan
Department of Philosophy, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, USA.
Kennedy Inst Ethics J. 2008 Sep;18(3):253-73. doi: 10.1353/ken.0.0197.
What is the ethical significance of debriefing in deceptive research? The standard view of debriefing is that it serves to disclose the deception to the participant and is a means of evaluating and mitigating potential harms that may have resulted from involvement in the research. However, as the article by Miller, Gluck, and Wendler in this issue of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal points out, there has been little systematic attention to the ethics of debriefing, particularly with regard to the role of debriefing in addressing the prima facie moral wrong of deception itself. They argue that in addition to mitigating the harms of deception, debriefing should include an apology to participants for being deceived. In the current paper, I argue that an apology is not morally obligatory in most research contexts. Debriefing should be considered an opportunity to further define the researcher-participant relationship without the need to be remorseful about the research practice.
在欺骗性研究中进行事后解释的伦理意义是什么？关于事后解释的标准观点是，它旨在向参与者披露欺骗行为，并且是评估和减轻因参与研究可能导致的潜在危害的一种方式。然而，正如米勒、格鲁克和温德勒在本期《肯尼迪伦理学杂志》上发表的文章所指出的，对于事后解释的伦理问题，尤其是事后解释在解决欺骗行为本身表面上的道德错误方面的作用，几乎没有进行系统的关注。他们认为，除了减轻欺骗的危害之外，事后解释还应该向参与者为其被欺骗而道歉。在本文中，我认为在大多数研究背景下，道歉在道德上并非是必须的。事后解释应被视为进一步界定研究者与参与者关系的一个机会，而无需对研究实践感到懊悔。
