I’m a philosopher, not a scientist, which means (among other things) that I don’t have to get the informed consent of the concepts, methods, and arguments I study. See here. By the way, it’s absurd that Institutional Review Boards are described as “ethics” panels. They’re regulatory bodies, created and governed by law. They’re coercive, not persuasive. Ethics, as Plato wrote in The Republic long ago, is about how we ought to live; it is not about using law to control behavior.