An "Ethical Moment" in Data Sharing.

This study draws on interviews with forty-nine members of a biomedical research community in the UK that is involved in negotiating data sharing and access. During an interview, an interviewee used the words "ethical moment" to describe a confrontation between collaborators in relation to data sharing. In this article, I use this as a lens for thinking about relations between "the conceptual and the empirical" in a way that allows both analyst and actor to challenge the status quo and consider other ethical possibilities. Drawing on actor network theory (ANT), I approach "the empirical" using the concepts of controversy and ontological uncertainty as methodological tools to tackle the problem of ethics. I suggest that these concepts also provide a bridge for understanding the ontological structure of the virtual and the actual, as described in Deleuze's . While other science and technology studies scholars have sought to draw on Deleuze, this article addresses the integration of ethics and empirical research. It arises as a critical reaction to existing treatments of this problem as found in empirical ethics, especially in the sociology of bioethics, and indirectly in ANT texts.