Computer ethics is a relatively young discipline,hence it needs time both for reflection and forexploring alternative ethical standpoints in buildingup its own theoretical framework. Feminist ethics isoffered as one such alternative particularly to informissues of equality and power. We argue that feministethics is not narrowly confined to ‘women's issues’ but is an approach with wider egalitarianapplications. The rise of feminist ethics in relationto feminist theory in general is described and withinthat the work of Gilligan and others on an ‘ethic of (...) care’. We argue for the need to connect theory toempirical evidence. Empirical studies of gender andbusiness and computer ethics are reviewed. We noteconcerns with surveying a student audience, the issueof how far questionnaires and interviews can get tothe heart of ethical beliefs and problems ofperforming statistical analyses of quantitative data.Although we recognize them, our own small surveycannot avoid all these problems. Nevertheless byrefining our scenarios we are able to offer analternative reading of a hacking problem in terms ofan ethic of care thereby pointing a way forward forfuture research in computer ethics inspired byfeminist theory. (shrink)

Leadership which lacks ethical conduct can be dangerous, destructive, and even toxic. Ethical leadership, though well discussed in the literature, has been tested empirically as a construct in very few studies. An empirical investigation of ethical leadership in Singapore's construction industry is reported. It is found that ethical leadership is positively and significantly associated with transformational leadership, transformational culture of organization, contingent reward dimension of transactional leadership, leader effectiveness, employee willingness to put in extra effort, and employee satisfaction with the (...) leader. However, it is also found that ethical leadership bears no correlations with transactional leadership. Also, it is negatively correlated with laissez-faire leadership and transactional culture of the organization. The findings also reveal that ethical leadership plays a mediating role in the relationship between employee outcomes and organizational culture. Practical implications of these findings are discussed. Directions for future research are also suggested. (shrink)

Warum und wie genau darf zu Hause oder auf einer Theaterbühne anders gehandelt werden, als im Büro; wie verändert sich die Bedeutung von Worten, je nachdem wo, von wem und wie sie gesagt werden? Warum und mit welchen Mitteln versuchen wir, höflich zu sein, und inwiefern sind wir von unangemessenem Verhalten anderer bedroht? Welches Weltwissen benötigen Beobachter, um beurteilen zu können, wann Verhalten als angemessen oder unangemessen einzustufen ist? Im vorliegenden Band untersuchen die Beitragenden das Phänomen sozialer Angemessenheit unter anderem (...) aus philosophischer, sozialpsychologischer, soziologischer, kulturtheoretischer, linguistischer und anthropologischer Perspektive. Dabei werden insbesondere Bedingungen und Auswirkungen, Merkmale sowie Wandlungs- und Entstehungsprozesse sozialer Angemessenheit thematisiert. Die Herausgebenden Jacqueline Bellon M.A. promoviert an der TU Darmstadt und arbeitet als Philosophin, Kultur- und Sozialwissenschaftlerin. Dr. Bruno Gransche ist Philosoph am Institut für Technikzukünfte (ITZ) des Karlsruher Instituts für Technologie (KIT). Sebastian Nähr-Wagener M.A. ist wiss. Mitarbeiter am Institut für Technikzukünfte (ITZ) des Karlsruher Instituts für Technologie (KIT). (shrink)

In his correspondence, John Locke described his close friend Damaris Masham as ‘a determined foe to ecclesiastical tyranny’ and someone who had ‘the greatest aversion to all persecution on account of religious matters.’ In her short biography of Locke, Masham returned the compliment by commending Locke for convincing others that ‘Liberty of Conscience is the unquestionable Right of Mankind.’ These comments attest to Masham’s personal commitment to the cause of religious liberty. Thus far, however, there has been no scholarly discussion (...) of the tolerationist ethic underlying Masham’s 1705 publication, Occasional Thoughts. In this chapter, I argue that Masham’s work appeals to three common tolerationist principles of her time: the idea that the authorities should not use coercion and penalties as ways of imposing religious beliefs on others; the view that God requires human beings to attain salvation through their own efforts, and not by blindly following the dictates of the state-established religion; and the idea that the granting of liberty of conscience helps to ensure the peace and stability of political society. I show that Masham goes further than her tolerationist contemporaries by arguing that together these principles imply that a woman’s intellectual education—or the conscious cultivation of a woman’s ability to reflect critically on her religious beliefs—is vital for the good of the commonwealth. (shrink)

In this rich and detailed study of early modern women's thought, Jacqueline Broad explores the complexity of women's responses to Cartesian philosophy and its intellectual legacy in England and Europe. She examines the work of thinkers such as Mary Astell, Elisabeth of Bohemia, Margaret Cavendish, Anne Conway and Damaris Masham, who were active participants in the intellectual life of their time and were also the respected colleagues of philosophers such as Descartes, Leibniz and Locke. She also illuminates the continuities (...) between early modern women's thought and the anti-dualism of more recent feminist thinkers. The result is a more gender-balanced account of early modern thought than has hitherto been available. Broad's clear and accessible exploration of this still-unfamiliar area will have a strong appeal to both students and scholars in the history of philosophy, women's studies and the history of ideas. (shrink)

One might be inclined to assume, given the mouse donning its cover, that the behavior of interest in Nicole Nelson's book Model Behavior (2018) is that of organisms like mice that are widely used as “stand-ins” for investigating the causes of human behavior. Instead, Nelson's ethnographic study focuses on the strategies adopted by a community of rodent behavioral researchers to identify and respond to epistemic challenges they face in using mice as models to understand the causes of disordered human behaviors (...) associated with mental illness. Although Nelson never explicitly describes the knowledge production activities in which her behavioral geneticist research subjects engage as “exemplary”, the question of whether or not these activities constitute “model behavior(s)”—generalizable norms for engaging in scientific research—is one of the many thought-provoking questions raised by her book. As a philosopher of science interested in this question, I take it up here. (shrink)

Despite its centrality in the philosophy of cognitive science, there has been little prior philosophical work engaging with the notion of representation in contemporary NLP practice. This paper attempts to fill that lacuna: drawing on ideas from cognitive science, I introduce a framework for evaluating the representational claims made about components of neural NLP models, proposing three criteria with which to evaluate whether a component of a model represents a property and operationalising these criteria using probing classifiers, a popular analysis (...) technique in NLP (and deep learning more broadly). The project of operationalising a philosophically-informed notion of representation should be of interest to both philosophers of science and NLP practitioners. It affords philosophers a novel testing-ground for claims about the nature of representation, and helps NLPers organise the large literature on probing experiments, suggesting novel avenues for empirical research. (shrink)

As citizens, we hold certain truths to be self-evident: that the rights to own land, marry, inherit property, and especially to assume birthright citizenship should be guaranteed by the state. The laws promoting these rights appear not only to preserve our liberty but to guarantee society remains just. Yet considering how much violence and inequality results from these legal mandates, Jacqueline Stevens asks whether we might be making the wrong assumptions. Would a world without such laws be more just? (...) Arguing that the core laws of the nation-state are more about a fear of death than a desire for freedom, Jacqueline Stevens imagines a world in which birthright citizenship, family inheritance, state-sanctioned marriage, and private land ownership are eliminated. Would chaos be the result? Drawing on political theory and history and incorporating contemporary social and economic data, she brilliantly critiques our sentimental attachments to birthright citizenship, inheritance, and marriage and highlights their harmful outcomes, including war, global apartheid, destitution, family misery, and environmental damage. It might be hard to imagine countries without the rules of membership and ownership that have come to define them, but as Stevens shows, conjuring new ways of reconciling our laws with the condition of mortality reveals the flaws of our present institutions and inspires hope for moving beyond them. (shrink)

As citizens, we hold certain truths to be self-evident: that the rights to own land, marry, inherit property, and especially to assume birthright citizenship should be guaranteed by the state. The laws promoting these rights appear not only to preserve our liberty but to guarantee society remains just. Yet considering how much violence and inequality results from these legal mandates, Jacqueline Stevens asks whether we might be making the wrong assumptions. Would a world without such laws be more just? (...) Arguing that the core laws of the nation-state are more about a fear of death than a desire for freedom, Jacqueline Stevens imagines a world in which birthright citizenship, family inheritance, state-sanctioned marriage, and private land ownership are eliminated. Would chaos be the result? Drawing on political theory and history and incorporating contemporary social and economic data, she brilliantly critiques our sentimental attachments to birthright citizenship, inheritance, and marriage and highlights their harmful outcomes, including war, global apartheid, destitution, family misery, and environmental damage. It might be hard to imagine countries without the rules of membership and ownership that have come to define them, but as Stevens shows, conjuring new ways of reconciling our laws with the condition of mortality reveals the flaws of our present institutions and inspires hope for moving beyond them. (shrink)

In her Remarks Upon Some Writers (1743), Catharine Trotter Cockburn takes a seemingly radical stance by asserting that it is possible for atheists to be virtuous. In this paper, I examine whether or not Cockburn’s views concerning atheism commit her to a naturalistic ethics and a so-called radical enlightenment position on the independence of morality and religion. First, I examine her response to William Warburton’s critique of Pierre Bayle’s arguments concerning the possibility of a society of virtuous atheists. I argue (...) that this response shows Cockburn vacillating between a moral naturalism, on the one hand, and a theistic morality, on the other. Second, I draw on Cockburn’s letters to her niece Ann Arbuthnot, and her opinions concerning mystical ideas about “the will of God” in north-east Scotland in the mid-eighteenth century. I maintain that these letters give us a fuller appreciation of Cockburn’s naturalistic position. My conclusion is that Cockburn’s ideas concerning atheism prompt us to consider the close interplay between secular and religious principles in so-called radical ideas of the period. (shrink)

This anthology offers a comprehensive introduction to Pliny the Younger's Epistulae for intermediate and advanced Latin students, with the grammatical, lexical, and historical support to enable them to read quickly and fluidly. As the only selection of the letters with extensive commentary, it provides instructors with a unique and complete resource for students.ABOUT THE SERIESThe Oxford Greek and Latin College Commentaries is designed for students in intermediate or advanced Greek or Latin. Each volume includes a comprehensive introduction. The placement, on (...) the same page, of the ancient text, a running vocabulary, and succinct notes focusing on grammar, syntax, and distinctive features of style provides students with essential learning aids.Series Editors: Barbara Weiden Boyd, Bowdoin College, Stephen Esposito, Boston University, and Mary Lefkowitz, Wellesley CollegeAlso Available Ovid: Ars Amatoria, Book 3, Christopher M. Brunelle, St. Olaf CollegeForthcoming Latin VolumesSuetonius's Life of AugustusDarryl Phillips, Connecticut CollegeLucan's De Bello Civile, Book 5Jonathan Tracy, Massey University, New Zealand. (shrink)

A critic of utilitarianism, in a paper entitled “Innocence and Consequentialism” Laing argues that Singer cannot without contradicting himself reject baby farming (a thought experiment that involves mass-producing deliberately brain damaged children for live birth for the greater good of organ harvesting) and at the same time hold on to his “personism” a term coined by Jenny Teichman to describe his fluctuating (and Laing says, discriminatory) theory of human moral value. His explanation that baby farming undermines attitudes of care and (...) concern for the very young, can be applied to babies and the unborn (non-persons on his view) and contradicts positions that he adopts elsewhere in his work. (shrink)

As reproductive genetic technologies advance, families have more options to choose what sort of child they want to have. Using preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD), for example, allows parents to evaluate several existing embryos before selecting which to implant via in vitro fertilization (IVF). One of the traits PGD can identify is genetic deafness, and hearing embryos are now preferentially selected around the globe using this method. Importantly, some Deaf families desire a deaf child, and PGD–IVF is also an option for (...) them. Selection for genetic deafness, however, encounters widespread disapproval in the hearing community, including mainstream philosophy and bioethics. In this paper I apply Elizabeth Barnes’ value-neutral model of disability as mere-difference to the case of selecting for deafness. I draw on evidence from Deaf Studies and Disability Studies to build an understanding of deafness, the Deaf community, and the circumstances relevant to reproductive choices that may obtain for some Deaf families. Selection for deafness, with deafness understood as mere-difference and valued for its cultural identity, need not necessitate impermissible moral harms. I thus advocate that it is sometimes morally permissible to select for deafness in one’s child. (shrink)

This paper examines the concept of liberty at the heart of Sarah Chapone’s 1735 work, The Hardships of the English Laws in Relation to Wives. In this work, Chapone (1699-1764) advocates an ideal of freedom from domination that closely resembles the republican ideal in seventeenth and eighteenth- century England. This is the idea that an agent is free provided that no-one else has the power to dispose of that agent’s property—her “life, liberty, and limb” and her material possessions—according to his (...) arbitrary will and pleasure, without being accountable to the law. This paper shows how Chapone uses this ideal to ground her arguments against those laws that put married women in a worse condition than slavery, and to call for the establishment of reasonable and just safeguards for a woman’s personal property and property in her children. More than this, it is argued, in this text Chapone articulates a feminist ideal that is both negative freedom from domination and positive freedom to be one’s own master or arbiter. Her work thus occupies a unique—and hitherto unrecognized—place in the history of feminist philosophy. (shrink)

Ian Hacking instigated a revolution in 20th century philosophy of science by putting experiments (“interventions”) at the top of a philosophical agenda that historically had focused nearly exclusively on representations (“theories”). In this paper, I focus on a set of conceptual tools Hacking (1992) put forward to understand how laboratory sciences become stable and to explain what such stability meant for the prospects of unity of science and kind discovery in experimental science. I first use Hacking’s tools to understand sources (...) of instability and disunity in rodent behavioral neuroscience. I then use them to understand recent grass-roots collaborative open science initiatives aimed at establishing stability in this research area and tease out some implications for unity of science and kind creation and discovery in cognitive neuroscience. -/- . (shrink)

This article investigates how companies make sense of CSR. It is based on an explorative comparative case study of 18 companies in the Netherlands using background information, interviews and annual reports. Initially, the sensemaking process of CSR is guided and coordinated by change agents who are specifically appointed to explore the implementation of CSR in their company. These change agents initiate the CSR process within their own organisations. The meaning they develop stems from their personal and organisational values and frames (...) of reference. By attuning the vocabulary of CSR to the language of their colleagues, they aim to gain support for this undertaking in their organisation. This sensemaking procedure can be divided into pragmatic, external, procedural, policy‐oriented and value‐driven processes. The capability of an organisation to embed CSR is the result of trial and error, personal preferences and the use of language by the change agent that fits the (dynamic) situation at hand. Thus, each organisation needs a tailor‐made approach to implement CSR successfully. (shrink)

This article attends to the debate of what motivations – instrumental or altruistic – should drive corporate social responsibility decisions and practice; I offer an integrated instrumental a...

In a recent letter, Dillion et. al (2023) make various suggestions regarding the idea of artificially intelligent systems, such as large language models, replacing human subjects in empirical moral psychology. We argue that human subjects are in various ways indispensable.

Some scholars have identified a puzzle in the writings of Mary Astell (1666–1731), a deeply religious feminist thinker of the early modern period. On the one hand, Astell strongly urges her fellow women to preserve their independence of judgement from men; yet, on the other, she insists upon those same women maintaining a submissive deference to the Anglican church. These two positions appear to be incompatible. In this paper, I propose a historical-contextualist solution to the puzzle: I argue that the (...) seeming inconsistency can be dispelled through a close examination of (i) the concepts of selfhood and self-government in Anglican women’s devotional texts of the period, and of (ii) the role that these concepts play in Astell’s feminist arguments. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article addresses the growing literature in critical race studies, which holds that racism is permanent or incurable, and that by adopting this pessimistic view of racism, we can enact improved and healthier racialized lives. I argue that the focus on curing anti-Black racism, and the failure to do so in the civil rights era and its aftermath has left people of all races, to varying degrees, stuck in pessimistic states of racialized anger, resentment, guilt, and shame. These pessimistic (...) states have brought about an additional level of oppression for targets of racialized oppression. I call it “meta-oppression,” and it is the oppression of being oppressed. I argue that this oppression has exacerbated the effects of the social disease of racism, and it has literally affected the physiologies of many African Americans. This article provides a diagnosis of these existential and physiological states of meta-oppression and a clarification of its characteristics. This diagnosis is an initial step in a larger project of formulating and enacting effective treatments for it. I then argue that meta-oppression is a helpful diagnostic tool for clarifying the characteristics and ramifications on Blacks of US systemic racism during the post–civil rights movement period. I aim to establish meta-oppression as an existential and physiological condition that requires attention so as to expand the social imaginations of people of color and to allow us to engage in more systemic joyful affirmations of our racialized lives while still living within racist conditions. (shrink)

In the 1706 third edition of her Reflections upon Marriage, Mary Astell alludes to John Locke’s definition of slavery in her descriptions of marriage. She describes the state of married women as being ‘subject to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown, Arbitrary Will of another Man’ (Locke, Two Treatises, II.22). Recent scholars maintain that Astell does not seriously regard marriage as a form of slavery in the Lockean sense. In this paper, I defend the contrary position: I argue that Astell does seriously (...) regard marriage as a form of slavery for women and that she condemns this state of affairs as morally wrong. I also show that, far from criticizing Locke, Astell draws on key passages in his Thoughts concerning Education to urge that women be educated to retain their liberty. (shrink)

Mary Astell is best known today as one of the earliest English feminists. This book sheds new light on her writings by interpreting her first and foremost as a moral philosopher—as someone committed to providing guidance on how best to live. The central claim of this work is that all the different strands of Astell’s thought—her epistemology, her metaphysics, her philosophy of the passions, her feminist vision, and her conservative political views—are best understood in light of her ethical objectives. To (...) support that claim, this work examines Astell’s programme to bring about a moral transformation of character in her fellow women. This ethical programme draws on several key aspects of seventeenth-century philosophy, including Cartesian and Neoplatonist epistemologies, ontological and cosmological proofs for the existence of God, rationalist arguments for the soul’s immateriality, and theories about how to regulate the passions in accordance with reason. At the heart of Astell’s philosophical system lies a theory of virtue, including guidelines about how to cultivate generosity of character, a benevolent disposition towards others, and the virtue of moderation. This book explains the foundations of that moral theory, and then examines how it shapes and informs Astell’s response to male tyranny within marriage and to political tyranny in the state. It concludes with some reflections on the historiographical implications of writing Mary Astell back into the history of philosophy. (shrink)

How are we to understand religion? It is undeniable that religion, and religious motivations, have played a very large role in shaping world events. As such, the question of how to understand religion has become increasingly urgent. At one extreme are those who adopt a comprehensive scientific naturalism. They approach religious beliefs and practices in such a way as to reduce them to nonreligious social or psychological factors; for them religion is part of an ideology or an infantile wish projection (...) that must be outgrown. At the other extreme are many of the religious believers themselves, who take their own religion as absolute truth and take themselves to be in a privileged epistemic position to apprehend it. Both extremes are dangerous: the first because it fails to take both religion and the religious drive seriously, and so ignores an integral facet of human life; the second because it is exemplary of the dangers of religion itself, which can take absolutist and Manichean forms. When religion does take such a form, it degenerates into idolatry, for it mistakes what must always remain a finite and conditioned apprehension of the transcendent for the transcendent ground itself. Often coupled with such a mistake comes a failure to recognize the validity of other perspectives, as well as a violent exclusion of everything that is other or unfamiliar. (shrink)

Feminist philosophical writing on sexuality is both concentrated in specific areas and dispersed throughout feminist philosophy. This is because feminist philosophers usually incorporate in their writing some notion of what sexuality is and its relevance to women's social oppression and liberatory projects. Feminist thinking on sexuality can also be found in many writings on sexual violence, reproductive and erotic rights, sexual ethics, sexual politics, sexual law, sexual harassment, sexual deviance, sexual practices, sexual commerce, sexual identity, and sexual pleasure. Additionally, feminist (...) thinking on sexuality appears in the critical rethinking of biological and social sciences and in a variety of new discourses seeking their interdisciplinary homes in women's studies, gender studies, queer theory, and cultural studies. To carve out from all of this a domain of feminist philosophical work on sexuality seems difficult if not perilous. (shrink)

Synthetic biology is a broad term covering multiple scientific methodologies, technologies, and practices. Pairing biology with engineering, synbio seeks to design and build biological systems, either through improving living cells by adding in new functions, or creating new structures by combining natural and synthetic components. As with all new technologies, synthetic biology raises a number of ethical considerations. In order to understand what these issues might be, and how they relate to those covered in ethics literature on synbio, we conducted (...) an interview study with practicing synthetic biologists affiliated with a synthetic biology centre in Australia. Scientists identified a range of ethical challenges germane to the field, including precarious employment, pressures from industry, gender inequity, and the negative effects of the hyping of synbio. These challenges differed markedly from those identified in the ethics literature, whose treatment of the harms and benefits of synbio remains largely speculative and abstract. In our discussion of the pragmatic, every day ethical issues synthetic biologists face, we illustrate how issues of waste or research integrity play pivotal roles in everything from lived experiences in the laboratory, to long-term research trajectories guiding the field. In a confirmation of the ethical relevance of our participant’s views on the field, we argue that the subjects they raise must be included in any ethical analysis of synbio as a field. (shrink)

Descriptive accounts of the nature of explanation in neuroscience and the global goals of such explanation have recently proliferated in the philosophy of neuroscience and with them new understandings of the experimental practices of neuroscientists have emerged. In this paper, I consider two models of such practices; one that takes them to be reductive; another that takes them to be integrative. I investigate those areas of the neuroscience of learning and memory from which the examples used to substantiate these models (...) are culled, and argue that the multiplicity of experimental protocols used in these research areas presents specific challenges for both models. In my view, these challenges have been overlooked largely because philosophers have hitherto failed to pay sufficient attention to fundamental features of experimental practice. I demonstrate that when we do pay attention to such features, evidence for reduction and integrative unity in neuroscience is simply not borne out. I end by suggesting some new directions for the philosophy of neuroscience that pertain to taking a closer look at the nature of neuroscientific experiments. (shrink)

This ground-breaking book surveys the history of women's political thought in Europe from the late medieval period to the early modern era. The authors examine women's ideas about topics such as the basis of political authority, the best form of political organisation, justifications of obedience and resistance, and concepts of liberty, toleration, sociability, equality, and self-preservation. Women's ideas concerning relations between the sexes are discussed in tandem with their broader political outlooks; and the authors demonstrate that the development of a (...) distinctively sexual politics is reflected in women's critiques of marriage, the double standard, and women's exclusion from government. Women writers are also shown to be indebted to the ancient idea of political virtue, and to be acutely aware of being part of a long tradition of female political commentary. This work will be of tremendous interest to political philosophers, historians of ideas, and feminist scholars alike. (shrink)

Jacqueline Taylor presents an original reconstruction of Hume's social theory, which examines the passions and imagination in relation to institutions such as government and the economy. She goes on to examine Hume's system of ethics, and argues that the principle of humanity is the central concept of Hume's Enlightenment philosophy.

The goal of this article is to describe the new experiences that close female family members of disappeared persons have after the enforced disappearance. These relatives experience rupture with their pre-disappearance lives. Their everyday routines cease and the search for the disappeared person takes over. Some relatives experience impoverishment and many lose their children or spouse to emigration. Parts or all of their extended family cut off ties, friendships end, and some neighbors avoid them. A local humanitarian or human rights (...) organization and an association of relatives of disappeared persons come to occupy a central place in relatives’ lives and become “like a second family.” Focusing on enforced disappearance during the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile, this research is based on interviews with relatives of people who disappeared, on a year’s participant observation with a group of these relatives, and on the examination of relatives’ denunciatory art. (shrink)

IntroductionResilience is a factor in how youth respond to adversity. The 88-item Adolescent Resilience Questionnaire is a comprehensive, multi-dimensional self-report measure of resilience developed with Australian youth.MethodsUsing a cross-sectional adolescent population, confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to replicate the original factor structure. Over half of the adolescents were non-white and 9th graders with a mean age of 15.5.ResultsOur exploratory factor analysis shortened the measure for which we conducted the psychometric analyses. The original factor structure was not replicated. The exploratory factor (...) analysis provided a 49-item measure. Internal consistency reliability for all 12 factors ranged from acceptable. The revised factor total scores were highly and significantly correlated with item–total correlation coefficients.ConclusionThis revised shorter 49-item version of the Adolescent Resilience Questionnaire could be deployed and has acceptable psychometric properties. (shrink)

People with mental illness are treated, in research, as a ‘class’ or category who are vulnerable, without always being clear why they should be treated as such, not why an individual, rather than the class, is vulnerable. The two main reasons given are lack of competence and power imbalance. Competence issues include incapacity and legislation, assessment and the impact of the illness in decisions. Power issues cover the role of mental health legislation, coercion, protectiveness and paternalism, stigma and discrimination and (...) the ‘well’ and ‘ill’ self. These are examined within a framework of risk assessment, both to the patient and to others. Over-concern to protect the vulnerable can lead to gate-keepers preventing their inclusion in studies at various stages of the research. This denies such groups a voice in the research process.It is suggested that ethical scrutiny of research is not only to prevent harm to the vulnerable, but also to provide a framework to empower such people to take part in research. To do otherwise is to further stigmatize and marginalize them. One way forward is to look at the risk presented by different types of research, from clinical intervention trials to non-therapeutic, qualitative studies and to modify capacity and access requirements in the light of the risks presented. (shrink)