Morals and Ethics in Research - Essay Example

Morals and ethics in research Morals and ethics in research Introduction Ethical issues are usually marginalized ordetached from research project discussions. Actually, some researchers think of this aspect in research as a mere afterthought. However, the moral and social integrity of the researcher is undoubtedly a crucial aspect in ensuring that the researcher’s findings and the research processes are valid and trustworthy. The term ethics means “character” or ethos in Greek (Knapp, 2012). In order for a researcher to tackle the ethical dimensions of the research appropriately, he or she needs to consider a few technical aspects such as the moral principles guiding the research, the influence of ethical issues in selection of research problems, the ethical dilemmas or issues that might be encountered and the effect of ethical issues in matters of sampling procedures and designing the study. The research process must embrace ethics as a vital element in its substructure from the inception stage to the interpretation stage and finally the publishing of the final research findings. However, this aspect seems to be neglected and does not even appear in most models and diagrams of research (Nelson, 2008).The history surrounding the development of ethics in research has been characterized by disastrous and egregious breaches of human ethical values. A journey into the history of the field can give valuable insights to the modern research ethics codes and institutions that currently monitor biomedical research and social sciences. History of ethics in the field of research In 1932, the U. S public health service conducted the “Tuskegee syphilis study”. The primary aim of the study was to identify the natural cause of latent syphilis in human beings. Four hundred black Americans from Alabama and Tuskegee who had syphilis were recruited. Another group of two hundred non-infected males were also recruited. The subjects did not have an informed consent that they would be participating in the project. In 1930, individuals who had contracted syphilis were treated with “heavy metals” (Schulman, 2011). However, antibiotics became available by 1940 and were more effective when compared with the heavy metal. Unfortunately, the researchers withheld the antibiotics from the infected African Americans even though they knew that if the disease was left untreated would lead to disability and even death. Some reports indicated that the USPHS’s main aim was to prevent their treatment. The experiment lasted for more than 40 years. In 1972, the project was exposed by the media, thereby forcing government officials to end the experiment. At that time, 74 test subjects fortunately were still safe and alive but more than one hundred experimental subjects had died as result of advanced syphilis. In 1992, the government hired an investigation team and a review panel to investigate the entire project. The review panel stated that the entire project was ethically unjustifiable and that the men should have been administered with penicillin (Velasquez, 2009). The men did not give their consent in the entire experiment. They were not given clear details on what the study was all about. Critics even urge that the participants did not volunteer for the experiment but were deceived and mislead into thinking. The idea of an informed consent for the participants later on became an ethical principle. The World War II period was also characterized by scientific experiments on ethnic and racial minority groups such as the Jews in Nazi camps. As a result, the Nuremberg Code was formed in 1949. The code clearly stated that any research participation had to be voluntary. Similar codes of ethics emerged such as the Declaration of Helsinki in 1964 (Norman, 2013). These set guidelines for biomedical research projects that experimented on human beings. The guidelines indicated that the subject’s privacy had to be respected; subjects had to assess the risks of participation over benefits of participation. There was also the issue of a reduced cost of participation for the subject. The CIOMS, which was the Council for International Organization of Medical Sciences was also formed for those who had the intention of conducting scientific research in developing nations. Behavioral and Social Sciences There are a number of classic examples where there has been extreme violation of the codes of ethics in the field of social and behavioral scientific research. The most famous was the 1963 research project on obedience to the authority, which was conducted by Stanley Mailgram, a psychologist. The psychologist wanted to understand under what circumstances people obeyed prominent figures. His research methodology involved deceiving text subjects into assuming that were taking part in an experiment dealing with the effect of punishment on memory (Linda, 2010). Volunteers had to read a number of word associations to confederates who were in the Mailgram’s team. The subjects had to undergo several experimental conditions. In the first experiment, they were not able to hear or see the confederate. In the second one, they were able to hear the confederate protesting but they were not able to see the confederate. In the third one, they could see and hear the confederate. In the fourth one, they had the chance to place a confederate’s hand on an electric shock plate. If a confederate was not able to repeat back the words the volunteers had to administer an electric shock which they did not know was faked. Some wanted to quit while others continued to administer the lethal shock even when there was no feedback. Stanley’s research project deceived the test subjects and did not get their informed consent (Homer, 2013). The guidelines of the experiment prevented the subjects from quitting even when some insisted on stopping or protesting. Some test subjects even suffered psychological distress by knowing that they had to administer a lethal shock to a human being. There was a lot of controversy on whether this experiment was actually ethical. The test studies had to come into terms with the fact that they could administer a shock of 150 volts to a human being. On a social and moral ground it was like taking part in a torture exercise that could cause death. When the Mailgram and Tuskegee experiments were initiated, review boards were not in existence to oversee the specified goals of the project. The federal government started intervening in the mid 1960s in response to medical abuses such as the Tuskegee experimental abuse by establishing clearly defined protocols and rules governing experiments. As a result, the U.S congress passed the National Research Act in 1974 (Kuhn, 2009). The office protected research risks and was later on renamed as the Common Rule and was adopted by the federal agency. The common rule mandated that if an institution was receiving any form of government funding for research purposes then it had to form an institutional review committee. The committees were also known as the institutional review boards and were given the responsibility of monitoring the research proposals which dealt with animal and human subjects. My Research Project I am preparing to carry out a research project about drinking and drug patterns in the school. Prior to conducting the actual research, I will write an informed consent letter for anyone who will agree to participate. I will also make the respondents understand the necessity and implications of participating in the research project. The project will be a section of a worldwide study on drug and alcohol consumption among the graduating seniors. In alcohol consumption, it is easy because alcohol is legal so long as it taken within the stipulated time limits and age. However, in drug consumption I had to apply an undercover approach. The procedures will involve completing online survey questionnaires about drinking attitudes and patterns. Confidentiality will be another significant factor that I will strive to maintain at all times. Ethical Dilemmas and Implications in Social Research When conducting research projects I realized that some principles and guidelines that monitor the issue of an informed consent are relatively clear, but the whole aspect of implementing ethics in research projects is rather complex. Some fundamental ethical dilemmas have no clear ethical codes or clear guidelines on how to deal with them but as a researcher, I still have to tackle them in order to carry out a successful research project (James, 2009). Some of the ethical issues that I encountered and lacked clear guidelines on how to tackle them are deception and divided loyalties. Deception in Research Some researchers claim that in order to obtain vital information on specific social phenomena, covert techniques must be used. For instance, I when doing my research, I will sometimes need to secretly go undercover to carry out studies on underground cultures involving drug cultures in the college. I will also have to use deception to discover the inner culture and the social life of drug takers and drug dealers. Most of the time, I will be required to observe the drug dealers indulging in illegal activities and at times found myself being forced to engage in these activities. It would have been rather inappropriate to ask the drug dealers for their informed consent since no member of this underground society would want to be studied. Deception is not only evident in undercover research projects, but it is also applicable in simple qualitative social research methods (Alasdair, 2008). Mailgram’s experiment was an example of a research project with the element of deception but was not an undercover research project. Divided Loyalties Some researchers use research techniques that raise a lot of ethical controversies especially on matters of how human test subjects should be treated, which is indeed a social and a moral aspect. Renowned researchers such as Homan are known to have used techniques such as the softening up strategy to acquire more information and details from uncooperative respondents. Most of the time, qualitative research usually requires an emotional engagement among the knowledge builders. This, therefore, can make researchers to fake their concern and interest for others to get the sympathy of the respondents (Schulman, 2011). I may once be a victim of such a scenario whereby when conducting my drinking research I will need to fake my concern for my respondents in order to earn their trust and corporation. How to Resolve Ethical Issues in Research Practices Ethics lies within a social framework. Ethical dilemmas clearly show me the importance of including ethical perspectives in each and every research project. Ethical rules, however, are not the only solutions to setbacks encountered in research projects. Ethical guidelines do not even guarantee the fading away of ethical dilemmas when conducting social research. Researchers should also be very keen to identify the difference between ethical values and ethical codes (Norman, 2013). Adhering to ethical codes as indicated in the consent proposal does not mean the researcher is also adhering to ethical values. In fact, most researchers see the consent proposal as just an observance letter instead of a principle. Ethical Approach Based on Social Reality Social reality represents a phenomenological level created through social interactions and transcends individual motives and actions. According to John (2009), social reality consists of the accepted social tenets of a particular community; thus, social reality involves relatively stable laws and social representations. My social reality will have a great influence on the ethical approach I will adopt in my PhD research project. Several aspects of social reality will be put into consideration in formulating the ethical approach. After carefully reviewing the objectives of the project I may decide to abandon the undercover project because I believe it violates the autonomy ethical principle. I will conduct the drinking research project after realizing that I am violating the informed consent ideology. Social reality was my guiding rule, social representation and offered guiding framework. My test subjects will have the opportunity to decide on their own whether they want to continue participating in the research and the consequences of participating. This also means that alcoholic addicts will be given further counseling. Ethical Theories Broadly, epistemology is the study of knowledge and how people acquire knowledge. Some of the fields covered by epistemology are science, belief, perception, logic and knowledge. Ontology, on the other hand, is also known as metaphysics, which studies anything that is thought or said to be. The most common principle in ontology is “to be something is to be”. This idea urges that each entity that exists has some feature that can be observed or felt when one is subjected to such an entity (Velasquez, 2009). These two notions have a lot of impact on moral and ethical theories everywhere in research endeavors. They are believed to be the pillars of ethical codes. Metaethics Metaethics is a theory in ethics that tries to investigate the origin of ethical principles and their meaning. There is a perception that this theory is the least defined in the field of moral philosophy. It deals with issues of moral epistemology and moral semantics. They are also broken down into psychological and metaphysical issues. Metaphysical issues are all about the question on whether morality is independently of humans (Linda, 2010). While psychological issues deal with our mental basis on moral conduct, judgments and the things that motivate people to be moral. Metaethics clearly defines all the ethical principles even the autonomy principle. Therefore, as a researcher a deep understanding of metaethics is required. Consequential Ethical Theories Consequentialism is a theory which tends to inform people that the good deeds or proper moral conduct is identified by weighing the cost benefits of the consequences of an action (Schulman, 2011). Consequentialist principles motivate and guide people on how to way both the bad and good consequences of a deed. A deed is morally upright if the bad consequences are less than the good consequences but if the negative consequences are greater than the positive consequences then the deed is morally wrong. Consequentialist theories are also known as teleological theories. Autonomy which is an ethical principle is also defined by consequential theories especially on matters of weighing consequences. Every researcher should also embrace consequential theories. The Utilitarianism Ethics of Consequences The utilitarianism ethic of consequences emphasizes the implications of an action. According to this principle, the rightness of an action is contingent upon the results of its action. The end result of an action should cause the greatest good for the greatest number of people. The good in the context of research implies increase in wealth, happiness and knowledge. When I will be doing my studies, I will ensure that my research project lead to greatest good for the greatest number of people through generation of knowledge and treating my research participants in humane ways. Conclusion Implementing ethics in the whole research procedure from identifying research problems to conducting research goals, interpreting and finally reporting research results is important in ensuring the research process is controlled by ethical principles and not by a mare informed consent document. The researchers should also be keen to identify ethical dilemmas that might occur during any research project. The researcher should also engage in self-reflexivity especially through asking. The researcher should also be able to know his or her personal ethical standpoint before conducting a research project. References Alasdair, M.2008.After Virtue. Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame. Homer, T.2013.The Ethics of Management. Homewood, IL: Irwin. James, W.2009.Business and Society. New York: McGraw-Hill. Jones, J.2008.Bad Blood: The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment. New York: Free ink. Knapp, M.2012. Positive ethics, Handbook of Positive Psychology. Oxford: Isis. Kuhn, P.2009.Beyond Success. New York, NY: Oxford Linda,2010. Business Ethics. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company. Nelson, C. 2008. Understanding Organizational Behavior.Mason, OH: Cent ageLearning. Norman, E.2013.Ethical Issues for Qualitative Researchers Englewood Cliffs. NJ: Prentice Hall. Schulman, M. 2011. How we become moral. Oxford: Holder Education. Velasquez, M. 2009. Ethics: Theory and Practice. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Read More