Should we always engage in critical thinking about issues of public policy, such as health care, gun control, and LGBT rights? Michael Huemer (2005) has argued for the claim that in some cases it is not epistemically responsible to engage in critical thinking on these issues. His argument is based on a reliabilist conception of the value of critical thinking. This article analyzes Huemer's argument against the epistemic responsibility of critical thinking by engaging it critically. It presents an alternative account (...) of the value of critical thinking that is tied to the notion of forming and deploying a critical identity. And it develops an account of our epistemic responsibility to engage in critical thinking that is not dependent on reliability considerations alone. The primary purpose of the article is to provide critical thinking students, or those that wish to reflect on the value of critical thinking, with an opportunity to think metacritically about critical thinking by examining an argument that engages the question of whether it is epistemically responsible for one to engage in critical thinking. (shrink)

When thinking about designing social media platforms, we often focus on factors such as usability, functionality, aesthetics, ethics, and so forth. Epistemic considerations have rarely been given the same level of attention in design discussions. This paper aims to rectify this neglect. We begin by arguing that there are epistemic norms that govern environments, including social media environments. Next, we provide a framework for applying these norms to the question of platform design. We then apply this framework to the real-world (...) case of long-form informational content platforms. We argue that many current long-form informational content platforms are epistemically unhealthy. The good news? We provide concrete advice on how to take steps toward improving their health! Specifically, we argue that they should change how they verify and authenticate content creators and how this information is displayed to content consumers. We conclude by connecting this guidance to broader issues about the epistemic health of platforms. (shrink)

This paper explores the concept of moral expertise in the contemporary philosophical debate, with a focus on three accounts discussed across moral epistemology, bioethics, and virtue ethics: an epistemic authority account, a skilled agent account, and a hybrid model sharing key features of the two. It is argued that there are no convincing reasons to defend a monistic approach that reduces moral expertise to only one of these models. A pluralist view is outlined in the attempt to reorient the discussion (...) about moral expertise. (shrink)

A great many important decisions we make in life depend on scientific information that we are not in a position to assess. So it seems we must defer to experts. By now there are a variety of criteria on offer by which non-experts can judge the trustworthiness of a scientist responsible for producing or promulgating this information. But science is, for the most part, a collective not an individual enterprise. This paper explores which of the criteria for judging the trustworthiness (...) of individual scientists can be amended for use in assessing the trustworthiness of scientific collectives. It also offers some new proposals specifically geared to assessing collective trustworthiness in science, notably, an analysis of where to apply the criteria (for example at the group or individual level) and additional criteria to assess group infrastructure and design. The paper ends with some practical suggestions for how to assist the non-expert in this task. (shrink)

Understanding the relationship between experts and laypeople is crucial for understanding today’s world of post-truth and the contemporary crisis of liberal democracy. The emergence of post-truth has been linked to various phenomena such as a flawed social and mass media ecosystem, poor citizen education, and the manipulation tactics of powerful interest groups. The paper argues that the problem is, however, more profound. The underlying issue is laypeople’s inevitable epistemic dependence on experts. The latter is part and parcel of the “risk (...) society” in which people question the scientific consensus and thus are able to manipulate the facts. It is a powerful weapon in the hands of illiberal democrats, though liberal democrats can make no use of it. The latter downplay the problem of citizens’ epistemic deficits and of the epistemic asymmetries between them. The third and fourth generations of deliberative democrats are a perfect example. The paper argues that the concepts of interactional expertise and epistemic dependence explain why understanding between experts and laypeople is impossible. The said phenomena undermine liberalism’s unrealistic assumptions concerning citizens’ decision-making competence. (shrink)

Moral perceptualism is the view that perceptual experience is attuned to pick up on moral features in our environment, just as it is attuned to pick up on mundane features of an environment like textures, shapes, colors, pitches, and timbres. One important family of views that incorporate moral perception are those of virtue theorists and sensibility theorists. On these views, one central ability of the virtuous agent is her sensitivity to morally relevant features of situations, where this sensitivity is often (...) spoken of in perceptual terms. However, sensibility theorists have often not been careful to specify how to understand their claims about moral sensibilities as perceptual. In this paper, we distinguish between what we call Attentional Moral Perception and Contentful Moral Perception. We argue that sensibility theorists should endorse Attentional Moral Perception, because it has very powerful empirical evidence in its favor, and it can play all of the explanatory roles that the sensibility theorist needs in her theory of moral sensibilities. (shrink)

Moral expertise requires a level of reliability in moral matters that is significantly higher than that of the average person. The author argues that this requirement of epistemic superiority in moral matters is sometimes fulfilled by our future selves and generally fulfilled by present moral philosophers. Our future selves are more reliable in answering moral questions than we are, when they have been prepared to answer those questions by various epistemic activities. But if our future selves are our epistemic superiors (...) in such cases, moral philosophers are epistemic superiors in moral matters more generally since their epistemic advantages are even more significant. The author concludes by arguing that moral philosophers plausibly even qualify as moral experts. (shrink)

In her BBC Reith Lectures on Trust, Onora O’Neill offers a short, but biting, criticism of transparency. People think that trust and transparency go together but in reality, says O'Neill, they are deeply opposed. Transparency forces people to conceal their actual reasons for action and invent different ones for public consumption. Transparency forces deception. I work out the details of her argument and worsen her conclusion. I focus on public transparency – that is, transparency to the public over expert domains. (...) I offer two versions of the criticism. First, the epistemic intrusion argument: The drive to transparency forces experts to explain their reasoning to non-experts. But expert reasons are, by their nature, often inaccessible to non-experts. So the demand for transparency can pressure experts to act only in those ways for which they can offer public justification. Second, the intimate reasons argument: In many cases of practical deliberation, the relevant reasons are intimate to a community and not easily explicable to those who lack a particular shared background. The demand for transparency, then, pressures community members to abandon the special understanding and sensitivity that arises from their particular experiences. Transparency, it turns out, is a form of surveillance. By forcing reasoning into the explicit and public sphere, transparency roots out corruption — but it also inhibits the full application of expert skill, sensitivity, and subtle shared understandings. The difficulty here arises from the basic fact that human knowledge vastly outstrips any individual’s capacities. We all depend on experts, which makes us vulnerable to their biases and corruption. But if we try to wholly secure our trust — if we leash groups of experts to pursuing only the goals and taking only the actions that can be justified to the non-expert public — then we will undermine their expertise. We need both trust and transparency, but they are in essential tension. This is a deep practical dilemma; it admits of no neat resolution, but only painful compromise. (shrink)

I argue that moral skill is limited and precarious. It is limited because global moral skill—the capacity for morally excellent behaviour within an über action domain, such as the domain of living, or of all-things-considered decisions, or the same kind of capacity applied across a superset of more specific action domains—is not to be found in humans. It is precarious because relatively local moral skill, while possible, is prone to misfire. My arguments depend upon the diversity of practical structures confronting (...) human agents, the limitations of human skill learning and reason-sensitivity, and the failure of moral considerations to respect the social and institutional boundaries we develop to structure our practical lives. (shrink)

This paper develops a moderate pessimist account of moral deference. I argue that while some pessimist explanations of the puzzle of moral deference have been misguided in matters of detail, they nevertheless share an important insight, namely that there is a justified moral agency ideal grounded in pro tanto reasons against moral deference. This thought is unpacked in terms of a set of values associated with the practice of morality. I conclude by suggesting that the solution to the puzzle of (...) moral deference developed here gives us a plausible recipe for generalizing to certain cases of nonmoral deference as well. (shrink)

Life is a group project. It takes a village. The same is true of our intellectual lives. Since we are finite cognitive creatures with limited time and resources, any healthy intellectual life requires that we rely quite heavily on others. For nearly any question you want to investigate, there is someone who is in a better epistemic position than you are to determine the answer. For most people, their expertise does not extend far beyond their own personal lives, and even (...) here we can sometimes find others who are more reliable. Without relying on them we would know very little about the world. Since others are typically better positioned to determine the answers to the questions we have, it should make us wonder why we should bother to try and figure out much of anything at all for ourselves. After all, when trying to find an answer to a question, we should take the best route to the answer, and the most reliable route to the answer to most questions is to rely on the minds of others. At the same time, there is something defective about an intellectual life that outsources nearly all of its intellectual projects. That is, it seems that individuals ought to think for themselves, at least about some issues and at least some of the time. The puzzle is in determining why it is epistemically valuable to think for yourself, since doing so will almost always not be the best available route to the answer of your question. In this paper, I will first clarify our central question and sharpen this puzzle regarding epistemic autonomy. Having done so, I will argue that autonomous deliberation can be epistemically valuable to inquirers both when it is successful, as well as when it is unsuccessful. I conclude by gesturing at how these considerations point us toward an account of epistemic autonomy as an intellectual virtue. (shrink)

There are many alleged problems with trusting another person’s moral testimony, perhaps the most prominent of which is that it fails to deliver moral understanding. Without moral understanding, one cannot do the right thing for the right reason, and so acting on trusted moral testimony lacks moral worth. This chapter, however, argues that moral advice differs from moral testimony, differs from it in a way that enables a defender of moral advice to parry this worry about moral worth. The basic (...) idea is that an advisor and an advisee can together constitute a joint agent, and that this joint agent’s action can indeed have moral worth. So while the advisee himself might not do the right thing for the right reason (this because all alone he lacks the right reason), and while the advisor herself might not do the right thing for the right reason (this because all alone she does not do the right thing), they together do the right for the right reason. (shrink)

My aim in this paper is to argue against what I call “epistemic” pessimism about moral testimony. Epistemic pessimists argue that moral testimony fails to transmit epistemic warrant as non-moral testimony does. I reject epistemic pessimism by defending theNo Difference Thesis, that there is no in principle difference between the transmission of epistemic warrant by moral and non-moral testimony. The main thrust of my argument is that there is a goodprima faciecase to be made for the thesis, namely, that it (...) is supported by all of the major current epistemological views of testimonial warrant, both reductionist and non-reductionist. After making this case, I consider five pessimist attempts to undermine theNo Difference Thesis, and argue that none of these attempts succeeds. So, in the absence of any other compelling criticisms, we are justified in rejecting epistemic pessimism and accepting theNo Difference Thesis. (shrink)

The status of moral testimony has recently been challenged, for both epistemic and non‐epistemic reasons. This paper distinguishes two methods of teaching: transmission, “classic” learning from testimony, that results in second hand knowledge, and propagation which results in first hand knowledge and understanding. Moral propagation avoids most of the epistemic and non‐epistemic problems of transmission. Moreover, moral propagation can develop and refine non‐cognitive attitudes too. Therefore moral testimony should (and normally does) take the form of moral propagation, not transmission.

A common philosophical account of expertise contends that (a) the good of expertise lies in the fact that it is grounded in reliably true beliefs or knowledge in a domain and (b) rejecting this truth-linked view threatens the authority of experts and opens one to epistemic relativism. I argue that both of these claims are implausible, and I show how epistemic authority and objectivity can be grounded in the current state of understanding and skill in a domain. Further, I argue (...) that what I call a ‘cognitive systems’ approach is consistent with this domain-linked account of expert authority, is empirically supported, and provides a philosophical foundation for both empirical and conceptual work on the nature and scope of expertise. (shrink)

In The Great Endarkenment, Elijah Millgram argues that the hyper-specialization of expert domains has led to an intellectual crisis. Each field of human knowledge has its own specialized jargon, knowledge, and form of reasoning, and each is mutually incomprehensible to the next. Furthermore, says Millgram, modern scientific practical arguments are draped across many fields. Thus, there is no person in a position to assess the success of such a practical argument for themselves. This arrangement virtually guarantees that mistakes will accrue (...) whenever we engage in cross-field practical reasoning. Furthermore, Millgram argues, hyper-specialization makes intellectual autonomy extremely difficult. Our only hope is to provide better translations between the fields, in order to achieve intellectual transparency. I argue against Millgram’s pessimistic conclusion about intellectual autonomy, and against his suggested solution of translation. Instead, I take his analysis to reveal that there are actually several very distinct forms intellectual autonomy that are significantly in tension. One familiar kind is direct autonomy, where we seek to understand arguments and reasons for ourselves. Another kind is delegational autonomy, where we seek to find others to invest with our intellectual trust when we cannot understand. A third is management autonomy, where we seek to encapsulate fields, in order to manage their overall structure and connectivity. Intellectual transparency will help us achieve direct autonomy, but many intellectual circumstances require that we exercise delegational and management autonomy. However, these latter forms of autonomy require us to give up on transparency. (shrink)

I propose to study one problem for epistemic dependence on experts: how to locate experts on what I will call cognitive islands. Cognitive islands are those domains for knowledge in which expertise is required to evaluate other experts. They exist under two conditions: first, that there is no test for expertise available to the inexpert; and second, that the domain is not linked to another domain with such a test. Cognitive islands are the places where we have the fewest resources (...) for evaluating experts, which makes our expert dependences particularly risky. -/- Some have argued that cognitive islands lead to the complete unusability of expert testimony: that anybody who needs expert advice on a cognitive island will be entirely unable to find it. I argue against this radical form of pessimism, but propose a more moderate alternative. I demonstrate that we have some resources for finding experts on cognitive islands, but that cognitive islands leave us vulnerable to an epistemic trap which I will call runaway echo chambers. In a runaway echo chamber, our inexpertise may lead us to pick out bad experts, which will simply reinforce our mistaken beliefs and sensibilities. (shrink)

This essay examines whether an invocation of an epistemological privilege on the part of supposed moral experts prevents potential students from being able to evaluate among potential candidates for the role of plausible moral teacher. Throughout, it works to demonstrate that it is possible for even the untutored student to distinguish between a fanatic and a moral expert. In particular, this essay focuses on the version of virtue ethics espoused by the early Chinese philosopher Xunzi. It argues that by reflecting (...) on the attributes of fanatics, as well as on Xunzi's ideas and arguments about students and teachers, it is possible to arrive at a general set of principles that provide beginners with the tools necessary to distinguish dangerous fanatics from plausible moral teachers, even given the fact that both claim for themselves an epistemological privilege. (shrink)

In this paper I defend dependence on moral testimony. I show how going defenses of dependence on moral testimony have portrayed it as second-best by centering on how and why it is an important means to overcoming our defects. I argue that once we consider the pervasiveness of moral testimony in the context of intimate relationships, we can see that the value of dependence on moral testimony goes beyond this: it is not only our flaws and limitations that justify our (...) dependence on moral testimony, but also the importance of such dependence for the flourishing of our intimate relationships. On my view, dependence on moral testimony is not simply for those who cannot realize the ideals of moral agency; it is among those ideals. (shrink)

This article is about the implications of a conciliatory view about the epistemology of peer disagreement for our moral beliefs. Many have endorsed a conciliatory view about the epistemology of peer disagreement according to which if we find ourselves in a disagreement about some matter with another whom we should judge to be our epistemic peer on that matter, we must revise our judgment about that matter. This article focuses on three issues about the implications of conciliationism for our moral (...) beliefs. The first is whether there is an asymmetry between the implications of conciliationism for the epistemic status of our moral beliefs and the implications of conciliationism for the epistemic status of our non-moral beliefs; for instance, some have argued that conciliationism leads to epistemological moral skepticism but not to epistemological nonmoral skepticism. The second is what the implications of conciliationism are for the epistemic status of particular moral beliefs. The third is whether conciliationism's impact on the epistemic status of our moral beliefs has practical implications. (shrink)

Philosophers and others have questioned whether or not expertise in morality is possible. This debate is not only theoretical, but also affects the perceived legitimacy of clinical ethicists. One argument against moral expertise is that in a pluralistic society with competing moral theories no one can claim expertise regarding what another ought morally to do. There are simply too many reasonable moral values and intuitions that affect theory choice and its application; expertise is epistemically uniform. In this article, we discuss (...) how similar concerns have recently threatened to undermine expertise in medicine and science. In contrast, we argue that the application of values is needed to exercise medical, scientific, and moral expertise. As long as these values are made explicit, worries about a pretense to authority in the context of a liberal democracy are ill-conceived. In conclusion, we argue for an expertise that is epistemically diverse. (shrink)

Pessimists about moral deference argue that there is something special about moral beliefs which make it impermissible for agents to defer on moral matters. In this paper, I argue that, even if pessimists are right that there is something special about moral beliefs, that is not enough to render moral deference impermissible. A stronger requirement—the rationality requirement—makes deferring to experts not only permissible but also rationally required. When one does not defer to one’s perceived moral expert, one either violates Belief (...) Consistency or violates Belief Closure. The moral considerations, such as moral understanding or virtue, for not deferring to experts either fail to show that not deferring is a better option than deferring or fail to show that those moral considerations outweigh rationality requirements. (shrink)

A major obstacle to broad support of clinical ethics consultation is suspicion regarding the nature of the moral expertise it claims to offer. The suspicion seems to be confirmed when the field fails to make its moral expertise explicit. In this vacuum, critics suggest the following:Clinical ethics consultation's legitimacy depends on its ability to offer an expertise in moral matters.Expertise in moral matters is knowledge of a singular moral truth which applies to everyone.The claim that a clinical ethics consultant can (...) offer knowledge of a singular moral truth in virtue of her professional training is absurd, false, or gravely immoral.Therefore,The field is illegitimate. (shrink)

How should we, as philosophers, respond to the pure moral testimony of people in marginalized positions? Some philosophers argue that marginalized people have an epistemic advantage concerning their experiences of marginalization, such that, if we are non-marginalized, then we should defer to their moral testimony concerning these experiences. We might accept this as a requirement for ordinary conversation but doubt that any such requirement obtains when we do philosophy, since philosophy requires a critical stance. This paper argues that philosophers should (...) also defer in such cases. It concludes that non-marginalized philosophers can only properly address certain moral propositions concerning the experiences of marginalized people if they engage in ongoing philosophical discussions with such people, starting from a position of trust. (shrink)

Concerned about widespread incompetence among voters in democratic societies, epistocrats propose quasi-democratic electoral systems that amplify the voices of competent voters while silencing (or perhaps just subduing) the voices of those deemed incompetent. In order to amplify the voices of the competent we first need to know what counts as political competence, and then we need a way of identifying those who possess the relevant characteristics. After developing an account of what it means to be politically competent, I argue that (...) there is no way for the epistocrat to identify such persons. Therefore, epistocracy cannot be implemented. (shrink)

What is the appropriate role for the political philosopher in a democratic society? One possible answer to this question is that she should use her expertise to provide normative guidance for her community. My aim in this article is to cast significant doubt on this view. I begin by endorsing a ‘qualitative continuity’ thesis about the nature of political philosophy, which posits an essential crossover between the activities of professional philosophers and ordinary citizens. I then offer a contextual account of (...) scholarly expertise, which views it as a status that is dependent on institutional recognition – rather than knowledge – and involves relational role obligations. I move on to argue that the authority implied by scholarly expertise cannot properly be extended to the normative political domain of a community. I then reject some potential grounds upon which such an extension might be defended, before briefly considering what a rejection of normative expertise might mean for the professional political theorist in a democratic community. (shrink)

Clinical ethics consultants (CECs) work in complex environments ripe with multiple types of expectations. Significantly, some are due to the perspectives of professional colleagues and the patients and families with whom CECs consult and concern how CECs can, do, or should function, thus adding to the moral complexity faced by CECs in those particular circumstances. We outline six such common expectations: Ethics Police, Ethics Equalizer, Ethics Superhero, Ethics Expediter, Ethics Healer or Ameliorator, and, finally, Ethics Expert. Framed by examples of (...) requests for ethics consultation that illustrate each kind, along with brief descriptions, we argue that while these expectations ought to be resisted for clear and practical reasons, they also create opportunities for CECs to articulate, educate, and ultimately be responsible to the professional demands of clinical ethics work. Recognizing, acknowledging, and at times resisting those expectations thus become key activities and responsibilities in the performance of ethics consultation. (shrink)

The nature, possibility, and implications of ethics expertise in general and of bioethics expertise in particular has been the focus of extensive debate for over thirty years. What is ethics expertise and what does it enable experts to do? Knowing what ethics expertise is can help answer another important question: What, if anything, makes a claim of expertise legitimate? In other words, how does someone earn the appellation “ethics expert?” There remains deep disagreement on whether ethics expertise is possible, and (...) if so, what constitutes such expertise and what it entails and legitimates. Discussion of bioethics expertise has become particularly important given the growing presence of bioethicists in the clinical setting as well as efforts to professionalize bioethics through codes of ethics and certification efforts. Unlike in the law or in engineering, where there may be a body of knowledge that professional organizations or others have articulated as important for education and training of experts, ethics expertise admits of no such body of knowledge or required experience. Nor is there an entity seen as having the authority to articulate the necessary scope of knowledge. Questions about whether there is such a body of knowledge for particular areas within bioethics have emerged and played a central role in professionalization efforts in recent years, especially in the area of clinical ethics. (shrink)

The world is abuzz with experts who can help us in domains where we understand too little to help ourselves. But sometimes experts in one domain carry their privileged status into domains outside their specialization, where they give advice or otherwise presume to speak authoritatively. Ballantyne calls these boundary crossings “epistemic trespassing” and argues that they often violate epistemic norms. In the few cases where traveling in other domains is permissible, Ballantyne suggests there should be regulative checks for the experts (...) who are crossing domain boundaries. I argue that boundary crossing is warranted more often than Ballantyne allows. And while Ballantyne argues that boundary crossing is prima facie epistemically problematic, I contend that many cases of boundary crossing are not properly instances of “trespassing,” and, therefore, raise no prima facie epistemic concerns. I further argue that identifying cases of what I call “epistemic neighborliness” bolsters Ballantyne’s project, making it easier for novices and other experts to identify epistemic trespassing along with its epistemic problems. (shrink)

Research ethics committees in Germany usually don’t have philosophers as members and if so, only contingently, not provided for by statute. This is interesting from a philosophical perspective, assuming that ethics is a discipline of philosophy. It prompts the question what role philosophers play in those committees they can be found in. Eight qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted to explore the self-perception of philosophers regarding their contribution to research ethics committees. The results show that the participants generally don’t view themselves (...) as ethics experts. They are rather unanimous on the competencies they think they contribute to the committee but not as to whether those are philosophical competencies or applied ethical ones. In some cases they don’t see a big difference between their role and the role of the jurist member. In the discussion section of this paper I bring up three topics, prompted by the interviews, that need to be addressed: (1) I argue that the interviewees’ unwillingness to call themselves ethics experts might have to do with a too narrow understanding ofethics expertise. (2) I argue that the disagreement among the interviewees concerning therelationship between moral philosophy and applied ethicsmight be explained on a theoretical or on a practical level. (3) I argue that there is some lack of clarity concerning therelationship between ethics and lawin research ethics committees and that further work needs to be done here. All three topics, I conclude, need further investigation. (shrink)

This paper is about two proposals endorsed by Xunzi. The first is that there is such a thing as a moral expert, whose moral advice we should adopt even when we cannot appreciate for ourselves the considerations in favor of it. The second is that certain political authorities should be treated as moral experts. I identify three fundamental questions about moral expertise that contemporary philosophy has yet to address in depth, explicate Xunzi’s answers to them, and then give an account (...) of politically authorized moral expertise as Xunzi understands it. The three questions at the heart of this study are these: how should we distinguish between knowing the correct course of action on another’s authority and knowing it for oneself? What exactly are the underlying considerations that the expert grasps and the novice does not? Who are the experts and in what spheres of life can they legitimately claim expertise? (shrink)

Our aim in this article is to bring some clarity to the clinical ethics expertise debate by critiquing and replacing the taxonomy offered by the Core Competencies report. The orienting question for our taxonomy is: Can clinical ethicists offer justified, normative recommendations for active patient cases? Views that answer “no” are characterized as a “negative” view of clinical ethics expertise and are further differentiated based on (a) why they think ethicists cannot give justified normative recommendations and (b) what they think (...) ethicists can offer, if they cannot offer recommendations. Views that answer “yes” to the orienting question are characterized as a “positive” view of clinical ethics expertise. Positive views are distinguished according to four additional questions. First (P1), how are those recommendations generated? Second (P2), what is the nature of the recommendations? Third (P3), we ask, how are the recommendations justified? And finally (P4), how are the recommendations communicated? (shrink)

Volume 19, Issue 11, November 2019, Page 65-66.

Different methods have been developed to address ethical issues during research. Most of these methods were developed at universities. In this article ethical parallel research within a Research and Technology Organization is described. Within a European project about perceived security, CPSI, the ethical issues were identified by ethicists cooperating in the project. The project CPSI was aimed at developing a research method that can be used by (local) government to monitor or assess perceived and actual security. Together with the researchers (...) a way was sought to address the ethical issues. Several issues could be addressed by choices with regard to the design of the validation study, in this case a survey. The ethical and legal reasons that were relevant for choices in the design of the validation study were made an integral part of these decisions. Some issues were already identified during the writing of the proposal others were only identified during the research. Participating in the research gave the ethicists access to all relevant information. It made it possible to address the ethical issues when they became relevant. Ethical reasons were part of some of the discussions on research method. It proved possible to address most ethical issues satisfactorily during the research project. (shrink)