Most people think of ethical (or moral) when they think of the rules that differentiate right and bad. Examples include the Golden Rule (“Do Unto Others as You Would Have Them Do To You”), a code to guide professional behavior like the Hippocratic Oath (“First all, do No Harm”), a religious creed, the Ten Commandments (“Thou Shall Not Kill …”),”) and wise aphorisms, such the Confucius quotes. This is the most common way to define “ethics”. They are rules that allow for different types of behavior.
People learn moral norms in school, church, and at home. Even though most people learn their senses of right/wrong in childhood, moral growth occurs throughout life. People go through different stages as they age. It is tempting to think of ethical norms as common sense. But if morality was just commonsense, why is there so much ethical controversy and issue in our society?
This could be because people all recognize the same ethical norms, but they are interpreted, applied, and balanced in different ways according to their personal values and lives. Because they have different conceptions of the meaning of being a human being, two people might disagree on whether murder is wrong.
While most societies have laws that regulate behavior, ethical norms are more general and informal than those laws. While most societies have laws that enforce moral standards, and both legal and ethical rules use the same concepts, ethics is not the same as law. A legal action can be unethical, illegal or both. However, it may still be ethical. To critique, evaluate and propose laws, we can also apply ethical concepts to help us. Many social reformers in the past century have encouraged citizens to ignore laws they consider unjust or immoral. Peaceful civil disobedience allows citizens to peacefully protest or voice their political opinions.
Another way to define ethics is to look at the disciplines that study ethical standards, such as sociology, law, philosophy, psychology and law. One example is the “medical ethicist”, who studies medical ethics. An ethics can also be defined as a process or method for deciding what to do and how to analyze complex issues. A complex problem like global warming can be approached from a variety of perspectives. One could take an ethical, ecological, and political perspective. An economist might evaluate the costs and benefits associated with global warming. However, an environmental ethicist may focus on the ethical values of the issue.
Many professions, institutions, or disciplines have different standards of conduct that are tailored to their specific goals and aims. These standards are also used to help members of the discipline coordinate activities or actions and gain trust from the public. Ethical standards are used to govern conduct in business, medicine, engineering, law and other fields. Researchers and other creative people are subject to ethical norms. These norms are even studied in a special discipline called research ethics. Research ethics Glossary.
Research ethics are important for many reasons. First, ethics promote knowledge, truth, accuracy, and avoidance. The prohibition against fabricating or falsifying research data is one example. This promotes truthfulness and reduces error.
Research involves a lot more coordination and collaboration among different people and institutions. Therefore, ethical standards encourage trust, accountability and mutual respect. Research ethics include guidelines for authorship, copyright, patenting and data sharing policies as well as confidentiality rules in peer reviews. These norms are meant to promote collaboration and protect intellectual property. Researchers want credit for what they have done and don’t want any of their ideas to be stolen or divulged prematurely.
The third is that many ethical norms are designed to make sure researchers are accountable to the public. Federal policies, such as those on research misconduct and conflicts of interest, human subject protections, and animal use and care, are essential to ensure that public funds are used to pay for the accountability of researchers.
Fourth, research ethics can also be a way to increase public support. Trust in the integrity and quality of research is a key factor in people funding research projects.
Many research norms promote other important moral and ethical values such as human rights, animal welfare and compliance with law. Research misconduct can cause serious harm to students, animals, humans, and the general public. Researcher who falsifies data in clinical trials can harm or kill patients. Researchers who fail to follow guidelines and regulations relating to radiation safety and biological safety could also endanger their health or safety, or that of their students and staff.
Research Ethics: Policies and Codes
It is not surprising that many professional associations, government agencies, universities, and other institutions have developed specific codes, policies, and rules relating to ethics in research. Many government agencies have rules and regulations for funding researchers.
