Beware Researcher! Ethics under Threat from Research, Science under the Hold of Research Ethics Boards

The article analyses the premises underlying the creation of research ethics boards/committees (REBs) and the manner in which they operate. It problematizes the adoption of a procedural approach to ethics by unveiling how the researcher is constituted as a potential deviant and as a morally suspect being requiring justification and science is redefined as a potentially dangerous enterprise. As a result, REBs are able to justify the need to control the researcher and regulate science, in other words, to interfere with the scientific process. The article concludes by advocating that instead of thinking ethics is an output that can be controlled, measured and verified, we should think of it as a point of equilibrium to be reached between the different parties involved in the research process.