Abstract
The realities of human agency and decision making pose serious challenges for research ethics. This article explores six major challenges that require more attention in the ethics education of students and scientists and in the research on ethical conduct in science. The first of them is the routinization of action, which makes the detection of ethical issues difficult. The social governance of action creates ethical problems related to power. The heuristic nature of human decision making implies the risk of ethical bias. The moral disengagement mechanisms represent a human tendency to evade personal responsibility. The greatest challenge of all might be the situational variation in people’s ethical behaviour. Even minor situational factors have a surprisingly strong influence on our actions. Furthermore, finally, the nature of ethics itself also causes problems: instead of clear answers, we receive a multitude of theories and intuitions that may sometimes be contradictory. All these features of action and ethics represent significant risks for ethical conduct in science. I claim that they have to be managed within the everyday practices of science and addressed explicitly in research ethics education. I analyse them and suggest some ways in which their risks can be alleviated.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Anderson, M., Ronning, E., De Vries, R., & Martinson, B. C. (2007). The perverse effects of competition on scientists’ work and relationship. Science and Engineering Ethics, 13(4), 437–461.
Bandura, A. (2002). Selective moral disengagement in the exercise of moral agency. Journal of Moral Education, 31(2), 101–119.
Bateson, M., Nettle, D., & Roberts, G. (2006). Cues of being watched enhance cooperation in a real-world setting. Biology Letters, 2(3), 412–414.
Beauchamp, T. (2010). Standing on principles—Collected essays. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Blakeslee, S. (2002). Hijacking the brain circuits with a nickel slot machine. New York Times, 19 February 2002. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/19/science/hijacking-the-brain-circuits-with-a-nickel-slot-machine.html.
Carlson, R., & Hudlicky, T. (2012). On Hype, Malpractice, and Scientific Misconduct in Organic Synthesis. Helvetica Chimica Acta, 95, 2052–2062.
Clarkeburn, H., & Mustajoki, A. (2007). Tutkijan arkipäivän etiikka (The Everyday Ethics of Researchers). Tampere: Vastapaino.
Comstock, G. (2013). Research ethics: A philosophical guide to the responsible conduct of research. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Daniels, N. (1996). Justice and justification—Reflective equilibrium in theory and practice. Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press.
Darley, J., & Batson, D. (1973). “From Jerusalem to Jericho”: A study of situational and dispositional variables in helping behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 27(1), 100–108.
Darley, J., & Latané, B. (1968). Bystander intervention in emergencies: Diffusion of responsibility. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 8(4), 377–383.
Doris, J., & Stich, S. (2014). Moral psychology: Empirical approaches. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2014 Edition). http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2014/entries/moral-psych-emp/.
Eriksson, S., Helgesson, G., & Höglund, A. (2007). Being, doing, and knowing: Developing ethical competence in health care. Journal of Academic Ethics, 5, 207–216.
Foucault, M. (1982). Afterword: The subject and power. In H. Dreyfus & P. Rabinow (Eds.), Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics: With an Afterword by Michel Foucault. Brighton: The Harvester Press.
Galef, J. (2011). The transplant problem. Youtube (19 June 2014). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyXQarVGBZA.
Gendler, T. (2013). Imagination. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.) The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2013 Edition). http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2013/entries/imagination/.
Giddens, A. (1984). The Constitution of society: Outline of the theory of structuration. Oxford: Polity Press.
Gigerenzer, G., Todd, P., & The ABC Research Group. (1999). Simple heuristics that make us smart. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press.
Gronow, J. (2004). Modernin yhteiskunnan mahdollisuus: Sosiaalinen eriytyminen ja esteettisen arvostelukyvyn kehittyminen (The Possibility of Modern Society: Social Specialization and the Development of Aesthetic Judgment). In K. Rahkonen (Ed.), Sosiologian nykykeskusteluja. Gaudeamus: Helsinki.
Hansson, M. (2002). Imaginative ethics—Bringing ethical praxis into sharper relief. Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy, 5(1), 33–42.
Hey, S. (2014). Heuristics and meta-heuristics in scientific judgement. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science. Advance Access published 24 December 2014. doi:10.1093/bjps/axu045.
Hoffmann, Roald. (2012). Part 5: Ethics in science. In J. Kovac & M. Weisberg (Eds.), Roald Hoffmann on the philosophy, art, and science of chemistry (Kindle ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.
Isen, A., & Levin, P. (1972). Effect of feeling good on helping: Cookies and kindness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 21(3), 384–388.
Jeličić, H., Phelps, E., & Lerner, R. (2009). Use of missing data methods in longitudinal studies: The persistence of bad practices in developmental psychology. Developmental Psychology, 45(4), 1195–1199.
Johnson, M. (1993). Moral imagination: Implications of cognitive science for ethics (Kindle ed.). Chicago & London: The University of Chicago Press.
Johnsson, L., Eriksson, S., Helgesson, G., & Hansson, M. (2014). Making researchers Moral: Why trustworthiness requires more than ethics guidelines and review. Research Ethics, 10(1), 29–46.
Kuhn, T. (1962). The structure of scientific revolutions. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Kuokkanen, R. (2008). From research as colonialism to reclaiming autonomy—Towards a research ethics framework in Sápmi. Ethics in Sámi and Indigenous Research. Report from a Seminar in Kárášjohka, Norway, Nov 23–24, 2006. Kautokeino: Sami Institute, 48–63.
Liljenquist, K., Zhong, C.-B., & Galinsky, A. (2010). The smell of virtue: Clean scents promote reciprocity and charity. Psychological Science, 21(3), 381–383.
Martinson, B., Anderson, M., & de Vries, R. (2005). Scientists behaving badly. Nature, 436, 737–738.
Martyn, C. (2003). The ethical bureaucracy. QJM, 96, 323–324. doi:10.1093/qjmed/hcg060.
Mason, E. (2011). Value pluralism. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.) The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2011 Edition). http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2011/entries/value-pluralism.
Mathews, K., & Canon, L. (1975). Environmental noise level as a determinant of helping behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 32(4), 571–577.
McDowell, J. (1996). Two Sorts of Naturalism. In R. Hursthouse, G. Lawrence, & W. Quinn (Eds.), Virtues and reasons: Philippa foot and moral theory (pp. 149–179). Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Mele, A., & Shepherd, J. (2013). Situationism and agency. Journal of Practical Ethics, 1(1), 62–83.
Mohr, G. (2001). Der Begriff der Person bei Kant, Fichte und Hegel. In D. Sturma (Ed.), Person: Philosophiegeschichte-theoretische philosophie-praktische philosophie. Paderborn: Mentis.
Murray, D., & Allen, G. (2012). Is mandatory research ethics reviewing ethical? Journal of Medical Ethics,. doi:10.1136/medethics-2011-100274.
Nussbaum, M. (1990). Love’s knowledge. Essays on philosophy and literature. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Resnik, D. (1998). The ethics of science. An introduction. London, New York: Routledge.
Resnik, D. (2005). Some recent challenges to openness and freedom in scientific publication. In M. Korthals & R. Bogers (Eds.), Ethics for life scientists (pp. 85–100). Dordrecht: Springer.
Ross, L. (1977). The intuitive psychologist and his shortcomings: Distortions in the attribution of process. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology 10. New York: Academic Press.
Searle, J. (2010). Making the social world. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sunstein, C. (2005). Moral heuristics. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 28, 531–573.
Thiel, C., Connelly, S., Harkrider, L., Devenport, L., Bagdasarov, Z., Johnson, J., & Mumford, M. (2013). Case-based knowledge and ethics education: Improving learning and transfer through emotionally rich cases. Science and Engineering Ethics, 19(1), 265–286.
Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1974). Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases. Science, 185(4157), 1124–1131.
Wimsatt, W. (2007). Re-engineering philosophy for limited beings: Piecewise approximations to reality. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Zimbardo, P. (2004). A situationist perspective on the psychology of evil: Understanding how good people are transformed into perpetrators. In A. Miller (Ed.), The social psychology of good and evil. New York: Guilford Press.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank university lecturer Pekka Louhiala, Professor Asko Tolvanen, university lecturer Hannakaisa Isomäki, doctoral researcher Anne Antoni, anonymous referees and editor Ray Spier for useful comments and tips that helped to improve the manuscript greatly.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Niemi, P. Six Challenges for Ethical Conduct in Science. Sci Eng Ethics 22, 1007–1025 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-015-9676-7
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-015-9676-7