Bridging Exploitation and Structural Injustice
the Example of Clinical Research
Keywords:
exploitation, structural injustice, off-shored clinical research, international drug research, research in poor populationsAbstract
Research enterprises in low-and middle-income countries have frequently been associated with the moral wrong of exploitation. Accounts that predominate in the current research ethics literature frame exploitation as a transaction-specific concept irrespective of its structural context. This has led to the common notion among applied philosophers that sponsors, –usually pharmaceutical companies and national research agencies from wealthy countries– and other agents are not responsible to remedy structural injustice. This paper addresses the conceptual connection between exploitation and structural injustice in the context of off-shored international health research. I offer a new account that conceptually links structural injustice to a subset of exploitative transactions I will call “systemic exploitation”. To advance my position, I will juxtapose structural theories and transactional approaches to exploitation and seek a new account that gives credit to the structural concerns without animating the transactional critique. This has considerable implications for the moral vindication to remedy background injustice.
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