Abstract

Research ethics represent a moral talisman that is claimed and invoked to secure legitimate membership of a ‘righteous’ club. Research ethical scrutiny is assumed as a uniform and universal good, however, and rarely questioned. In this paper I explore the development of ethical scrutiny of research, and examine this in terms of the sociology of organisational legitimacy (Dingwall, 2008; Parker et al., 2010; 2011), and identifying problems with uniform ethical scrutiny using, as an example, our research relating to the Mental Capacity Act 2005. The paper poses questions for the future ethical review of conjoint social science and biomedical research.