Experimentation in Children: Sharing in Sociality

he use of children (incompetent to consent) in nontherapeutic research is an extremely delicate and difficult ethical problem. Here I wish to respond to Paul Ramsey's quite interesting commentary on some earlier writings of mine on this subject.1 But first a public apology is due. In the course of his extended remarks, my colleague and friend confides to us that he had to stifle his amazement on at least two occasions. I publicly apologize for being the agent provocateur of such unaccustomed asceticism. However, when all is said and done, in his Report response to me, Ramsey's attempts at amazement-stifling simply collapsed and bubbled-up-as they so often do-by implying that his summary of my argument only skims the surface of its faults. But even so, his attempts must have been painful; so an apology is due. Now to the issues. First we ought to be clear on Ramsey's position, or better, positions, both of which he describes superior to McCormick's. The first regards any attempt to consent to experimentation for the child as a false and violent presumption. For it is to treat a child not a child. Thus, Ramsey's first position rejects in principle any experimental procedures that involve any degree of risk of harm, however minimal. Further, he goes beyond even minimal risk and rejects procedures that involve no risk but simply offensive touching. A subject can be wronged without being harmed, he writes. That is certainly true in general; now whether it is true of nonbeneficial experimentation on infants remains to be seen. So in Ramsey's view those incapable of consent are simply, without qualification and in principle, out of bounds for nonbeneficial research. Any other view, he argues, involves using the child a means only and not also an end.