Is Being “Paid to Endure” Compatible With Autonomy? Paid Research Participation and Five (Rather Than Four) Goods of Work

Abstract

In his article, Erik Malmqvist (2019) discusses whether it is a good idea to regulate participation in phase 1 clinical trials as work, thus turning the practice of making a living by being a research subject into a job. Specifically, Malmqvist investigates whether this would qualify as meaningful work, based on what Gheaus and Herzog call the four “goods of work”: excellence, social contribution, community, and social recognition. In related research that synthesizes both philosophical and empirical literature on meaningful work, we have recently identified five aspects of meaningful work, the first four of which broadly overlap with Gheaus and Herzog’s goods of work (Smids et al. under review). The missing element in Gheaus and Herzog’s picture—and therefore also in Malmqvist’s main argument—is autonomy. In the following, we first argue that autonomy should be included among the goods of work. We then augment Malmqvist’s argument by exploring how including autonomy among the goods of work affects whether being a paid research subject can qualify as meaningful work