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7. ETHICAL ISSUES IN NEUROSCIENCE RESEARCH ON SUBSTANCE DEPENDENCE TREATMENT AND PREVENTION

maleficence requires researchers to minimize the risks associated with
participation in research (Brody, 1998; Beauchamp & Childress, 2001).

iii. Beneficence
Beauchamp and Childress have identified “positive beneficence” and “utility”
as two elements of the principle of beneficence (Beauchamp & Childress,
2001). Positive beneficence requires people to perform actions that result in
benefit. Utility requires that the benefits of peoples’ actions outweigh the
burdens they impose upon others. The principle of beneficence therefore
requires that an action produces benefits and that its benefits outweigh its
burdens. In the context of biomedical research, this means that the benefits
of the research to society should outweigh its risks to participants.

iv. Distributive justice
Justice is probably the most controversial of the four moral principles. For
the purpose of this discussion, “justice” refers to “distributive justice” rather
than retributive (criminal) or rectificatory (compensatory) justice (Beauchamp
& Childress, 2001). In bioethics, the principle of distributive justice has been
central to debates about how to ensure equitable access to health care and to
reduce unequal health outcomes. In the case of research, the principle of
distributive justice refers to the equitable distribution of the risks, as well as
the benefits of research participation (Brody, 1998). A fair and just research
policy would aim to achieve a distribution of the benefits and burdens of
research participation that is as fair and equitable as possible.

Human rights
In 1948 the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) set out an
international set of human rights that would be honoured by all nations which
signed the declaration (United Nations General Assembly, 10 December,
1948). The UDHR recognised that all people have rights by virtue of being
human and that these were universal in the sense of applying equally to all
people around the world, regardless of who they are or where they live
(International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and
François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights, 1999; Mann
et al., 1999). The UDHR enjoined nations to treat all people as equal and to
promote and protect the right to life, liberty and security of person. It included
“negative rights” such as the rights not to be enslaved or in servitude, not be
to be tortured or subject to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or
punishment. It also obliged signatory states to afford people equal treatment
before the law and the equal protection of the law, without discrimination,
by requiring that everyone charged with a penal offence should be presumed
innocent until proved guilty (UDHR, 1948, article 11).

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