2.4 Ethical Frameworks

As you saw in the previous activity 2.3, in many situations, plausible arguments can be made convincingly both for and against a research study. So, how to evaluate the different arguments? It is helpful to understand that various arguments might based on the different approaches to ethics (often called ethical frameworks or ethical theories). Read the short presentation that explains the basic distinction between consequence-based and rule-based ethical thinking. Learn also the famous Four Principles, originally devised in the context of biomedical ethics, that are widely used also in other research areas.