Ethics: The Failure of Positivist Science

The authors argue that the metaphysical assumptions undergirding conventional (positivist) approaches to research provide a warrant both for deceptive research and for objectifying human research participants. They review the present status of ethical guidelines for inquiry and demonstrate how the realist ontological and objectivist epistemological assumptions of positivism systematically abet the circumvention of those guidelines. These difficulties, however, may be resolved by a shift to naturalistic inquiry with its relativist ontology and subjectivist epistemology. The authors then outline the special ethical problems typical of naturalistic inquiry. They conclude that a shift in paradigm eliminates the need for deceiving and/or objectifying research participants.