ABSTRACT
University-affiliated social scientists conducting inquiries that require human subjects in most English-speaking countries are well acquainted with institutional review boards (IRBs) that must certify the permissibility of their research. According to Immanuel Kant, one of the features of an ethics that makes rights and duties paramount and subordinates consequences is that moral assessment must focus on motives for actions, instead of their consequences. Naturalism aims at a causal account of their behavior and their minds that shows humans to be no different in kind from other, simpler systems to which we do not accord rights. The theory is not difficult to sketch and it provides answers to questions about the morality of social scientific research that contrast with those of John Stuart Mill's utilitarianism and Kantian deontological theories. The application of moral principles to particular cases is known as 'casuistry'. John Rawls's theory enables a critic of the claim to provide an alternative foundation for making such judgments.
