Ethics and Ethnomusicology

• Ethics: the Good.
  • Human rights, such as freedom and equality, as minima (equal inputs) and in potential conflict as emergence (i.e. freedom, say, may lead to inequality)
  • Social justice (equal outcomes; may require equity rather than equality on input)
  • Deontological vs. Consequentialist approaches towards Ethical Action.
• Key ethical principles (cited in research literature) balance the deontological (duty: action inputs, intentions) with the consequentialist (action outcomes, cost/benefit assessments). The following are often cited:
  • Humanity: respecting human dignity and rights--minima--and avoiding exploitation (duty)
  • Beneficence (ensuring that good outweighs harm) (outcome)
  • Equality (social justice, equal outcomes)
  • Informed consent (dignity; duty)
    • Full disclosure of information (no deception!)
    • Data anonymity (subject identity is unknown to researcher),
    • Data confidentiality (subject identity is known but hidden in raw data via encryption or use of keys, and not shared in publication through pseudonyms or data aggregation)
    • Privacy: limits to research contexts (appropriate time and place of research); use of recordings (who may view/hear them)}
    • Right to withdraw
• Philosophical ethics: Deontological (focus on duty to respect human rights) and consequentialist (focus on maximizing Σ {outcomes}, whether + or -) positions and how to resolve them.
  • Problems:
    • Whose good? The individual's? The group's? What group? When? (now? later?)
    • deontological: respect human rights (whose rights?)
    • consequentialist: sum total utility (how to quantify? sum?)
  • Deontological
    • Traditional ethics: The Golden Rule
    • Kantian ethics - the categorical imperative: action considered a necessary end in itself (vs the hypothetical imperative: an action to achieve a particular end)
      • "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law")
      • "Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same time as an end."
    • Habermas: Communicative Action (treating people as a communicative end, not a means - illocutionary mood)
    • Problem: how to determine how people are being treated? what is the temporal scope of the assessment (now, or into the future...)? whose rights are considered?
  • Consequentialist:
    • Utilitarians, e.g. Jeremy Bentham (consequentialist): summation of an action's positive and negative effects ("cost/benefit analysis").
    • Cost/benefit analyses of any sort (included in the UofA ethics process)
    • Problem: how to compute the sum for qualitative ethnographic fieldwork? how far into the future? (unlike cost/benefit for a new drug, where results are quantitative and immediate)
    • Theoretical conundrums: The trolley problem. Weaknesses: The transplant problem.
    • A real research conundrum: The Stanley Milgram obedience experiment. Use of deception for the greater good (?).
• Complexity of ethnographic fieldwork as compared to, say, biomedical research on a new drug.
• Ethnomusicology as a special case...
  • Why is ethics important for ethnomusicology? What are the ethical implications of our work? How would you compare ethics in ethnomusicology to that of, say, psychology, engineering, or medicine?
  • Why is it especially important for applied ethnomusicology (and M4GHD projects)?
    • The ethical impetus behind M4GHD itself
    • Their focus on disempowered or marginalized communities - which are also (almost by definition) vulnerable
    • Potential pitfalls: can you think of ethical problems that may arise in the course of ethnomusicological research? (think about conflicts in "doing the right thing" conflict?)
  • Discussion:
    • Ethical conundrums in ethnomusicology! What happens when various ethical principles (or applications) conflict? What do you do in such cases? (e.g. the good of the whole as opposed to the good of the individual; deception as a valid tradeoff for important information...)
    • Come up with an ethnomusicological conundrum of your own.
• Research Ethics documents applicable to the UofA
  • ARISE (Alberta Research Information Services]. Motivations behind institutional ethics boards? (deontological or consequential?)
  • Browse Canada's TriCouncil Policy on Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans.
  • What are the Principles enunciated here?
    • Respect for Persons (humanity: deontological)
    • Concern for Welfare (beneficence: consequential)
    • Justice (either)