Other fields exist in which artifacts are the objects of investigation: archaeology, artistic and literary criticism, and public policy research. The issues raised by archaeological research are more similar to those already discussed in section 2.3 The Case of the Re-Engineered Engineers. Indeed, in that section we did refer to ethical archaeological research practices.
However, in archaeological research the individuals who created the artifacts are no longer living. Consequently, the issues of consent, confidentiality, and to a large degree, harm do not arise. In contrast, artistic and literary criticisms can often harm the artist, and similarly, public policy research can harm an organization. It is recognized that a beneficence
requirement would undermine those fields of work [8], [34]. For example, such a requirement would prevent art critics from producing any negative reviews! In contrast, in both metrics and process research it should be possible to
avoid harming both individuals and companies by maintaining the confidentiality of some of the data and the anonymity of the subjects. Accordingly, Dr. Foot was able to protect the individual programmers from harm by maintaining their anonymity and the confidentiality of their defect data. As noted in section 2.4 above however, the protection of
employees can conflict with the interests of the company.