ABSTRACT
There is, at present, no unifi ed “ethics of inquiry.” Rather, the various questions of such an ethics have been distributed across a variety of subfi elds in philosophy. But to the extent that there is something like the ethics of inquiry, it is to be found in the ethics of medical research. This fi eld is notable not just because it has transformed the professional ethics of medicine and medical research in the past fi fty years, but also for the unanimity that has been generated within the fi eld. In particular, ethicists in this area, whether they come from philosophy, theology, law or the medical profession itself, have agreed, almost without exception, that the requirement of informed consent constitutes the core of the ethics of medical research. For this reason I begin the discussion of the external ethics of inquiry in this chapter with an account of the importance of informed consent.
