Lecture_Second_About_Ethical_Publication
- 1. Research and Publication Ethics Ref: James G. Speight and Russell Foote, Ethics in Science and Engineering, John Wiley Publishers
- 2. Introduction • Scientific and engineering disciplines are considered to be highly ethical professions in which scientists and engineers exhibit behavior of the highest ethical and moral standards. • Ethics is "the normative science of conduct, and conduct is a collective name for voluntary actions" (Lillie, 2001, page 3). • In this regard, voluntary actions are those actions that could have been done differently, where such actions may be good or bad, right or wrong, or moral or immoral. • Ethics focuses not on what people think but what they ought to think or do. • An ethical science is an in-depth, systematic study of the standards for judging right and wrong, good and bad principles, guiding means, and how far we will or should go (Lillie, 2001; Howard and Korver, 2008). • Generally, ethics (morality) is a core branch of philosophy that attempts to define right and wrong; what a scientist or engineer ought to do is as distinct from what they may do. • In philosophical studies, ethics is usually divided into three sub-fields: (1) meta- ethics, (2) normative ethics, and (3) applied ethics.
- 3. • Meta-ethics includes investigation of whether or not ethical claims are capable of being true or false, or if they are expressions of emotion. • Normative ethics attempts to arrive at practical moral standards that would tell, for example, the scientist or engineer what is right or what is wrong. • Applied ethics is the application of theories of right and wrong and theories of value to specific issues such as honesty and lying. • Whatever the definition, ethics is one of the pillars of scientific research, teaching and community service requirements of higher education. • It is definitely one of the criteria for evaluating the quality of higher education in these aforementioned areas. • Despite the variables that contribute to ethical or unethical behavior, the central determinants are the personal thoughts and behavior of the scientist and engineer which determines the meaning that an individual assigns to their position regarding ethics.
- 4. • Personal thoughts and behavior can override the influence of any other factor, including the Codes of Ethics of professional bodies. • The ability to manage emotions during the processes of scientific and engineering research orients many individuals to act on feelings and engage in unethical practices. • This is reflected in the increasing frequency of reports of misconduct in the scientific and engineering disciplines • The realm of ethics is concerned with standards and requirements for socially acceptable behavior, in addition to following proper procedures for getting things done at any level of interaction - individual, group, organizational, community, governmental or regional. • Ethics has several strands that are applicable to the scientist and engineer: • (1) descriptive ethics, which the actual behavior of people and the ethical requirements of their behavior, • (2) normative ethics, which is the application of the values that are good enough to guide interaction, and • (3) applied ethics, which is the application of normative rights to specific issues, disciplines and settings (Kitchener and Kitchener, 2009).
- 5. • The requirements, in this regard, are stipulated in various Codes of Ethics documents of scientific and engineering organizations such as Association of Computing Machinery (ACM), Institution of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), Springer. • However, such codes (Chapter 6) do not resolve the issue which, in the final analysis, depends on personal decision making, and freedom from bias, prejudice and personal values (Kitchener and Kitchener, 2009). • Furthermore, these codes cannot, and must not, be ignored by using claims of academic freedom. • Generally, they are intended to legally reinforce the need for respect for all other human beings independent of what anybody thinks about location, upbringing, gender, ethnicity, religious affiliation, age, culture, level of education and other characteristics.
- 6. • In fact, academic integrity is critical to higher education, especially where research and learning manifest. • However, the incidence of academic dishonesty in university settings leaves much to be desired with occurrences of dishonesty among 40% to 70% of the students (Davis et al., Kibler, 1998; Marcoux, 2002). • However, faculty consensus is limited on what forms of behavior constitute dishonesty. • Traditional forms of academic dishonesty, where there is consensus, such as looking on another student's paper during a test or handing in work done by a classmate, have changed with technological advances (Marcoux, 2002). • Modern computer programs and applications, Internet access to diverse and instant information, distance learning classes, and handheld computing devices which can transmit information in moments change the need for an increasing awareness by faculty, in terms of addressing academic dishonesty.
- 7. • Indeed, ethical issues have come and will remain at the fore because of the prioritization of differences by scientists and engineers as they seek to attain a more privileged position in their organization and the world of academia. • This behavior has been compounded further by the emergence of procedural inconsistencies in several major research projects (Kitchener and Kitchener, 2009) (see also Chapter 8). • In addition, there seems to be much truth in the postmodern view of research ethics that every research activity, question and decision has ethical underpinnings. • In such cases, a number of pertinent and revealing questions should follow with the corresponding ethical issues identified.
- 8. • Moreover, honesty has to be practiced at all times and must be evaluated on the basis of intentions and not outcomes, like some occupations. • However, "intentions will stop being regarded as good if they repeatedly produce bad results or no results at all" (Lillie, 2001, page 13). • In addition, the correctness of an action depends on the action as a whole, not on past actions. • Whether a scientist or engineer's conduct is good or bad may be: • (1) instinctive and discernible through one’s actions, • (2) intentional, which may be direct and motivating, or • (3) indirect, rooted in desire, which is a consciousness to act in a particular manner, or • (4) a matter of calculated choice (Lillie, 2001).
- 9. • Furthermore, explanations of theories of ethical behavior have been described as: • (1) absolute, which assumes that changes in circumstances make no difference in the rightness or wrongness of guidelines for action, ( • 2) relative, which indicates that ethical conduct can vary from person to person, • (3) naturalistic, which is due to the variation of ethical standards with a person's attitude, • in which case it is subjective, or, if ethical standards vary with a person's attitude changes, it is objective, • (4) deontological, which is when correctness depends on the action itself and, • (5) teleological, which focuses on correctness of actions in terms of levels of the benefits that result (Lillie, 2001).
- 10. • Indeed, the actions of one person can impact on the actions of others and, as such, the general nature and direction of actions in a society may affect the choices of others and their level of consideration for moral standards. • Such actions impact concerns for the common good, levels of egoism and altruism, and the eventual emergence of rights, duties and entitlements. • Ethical disagreements on rights, duties and entitlements are also possible and may take the form of disagreement in belief. • This is when an individual believes in one aspect of a theory or argument, and another individual believes in a different aspect of the theory or argument such that one individual persistently challenges the other. • Ethical disagreements may also take the form of disagreement in attitude.
- 11. • This is when an individual has a favorable, or unfavorable, attitude towards one side of the theory, and another individual has the opposite attitude towards one side of the theory (Stevenson, 2006). • Such disagreements are typical of the types of disagreements which occur between scientist and engineers. • But what really matters is the means by which a scientist or engineer reaches their conclusion, how the data were handled, and any ensuing interpretation of the data. • The extent and frequency of agreements and disagreements vary with the extent to which there exists an ethical environment, defined as "the climate of values in which people live and in which young people grow up" (Haydon 2006). • Schools, like all other organizations, share an ethical environment. • All societies have norms of conduct - norms are synonymous for morals which signify how people should treat each other. • Norm conformity is recognized as an obligation or duty, in the absence of norms being identified, where people can be guided by the consequences of their actions.
- 12. • Values, laws and religious teachings are part of the ethical environment (Haydon, 2006). • As such, values and laws must be considered to evaluate the ethical environment, which may have to be changed, if necessary. • This can happen through individual action, legal changes, or education. • Implicit in the creation and maintenance of an ethical environment is the emergence of regimes of reason and unreason, which are comprised of conscious and unconscious, opposing and accepted values that often clash with each other in a society (Leitch, 1992). • The assessment of rights, duties, and entitlements is also a moral issue. • Moral capacities and judgments would have been shaped by personality, socialization, situational demographic (age, gender, ethnicity etc.) and broader societal factors. • Generally, scientists and engineers act because they want to achieve a goal by which they satisfy an interest or desire (Furrow, 2005,10). • These factors do not act independently of each other, rather in combination. Indeed, morally appropriate behavior is driven by thoughts and feelings that were cultivated and reinforced across time and space.
- 13. • Moral autonomy is not achievable when personal desires, emotions and inclinations persistently influence a person’s judgment. • However, moral autonomy has to be exercised within certain societal boundaries even if it conflicts with individual's needs. • In this regard, it is necessary to evaluate desires and goals (Furrow 2005). • It follows that reasoning is instrumental in helping scientists and engineers pursue and attain certain goals. • However, caution is warranted because reasoning may be either rational or emotionally loaded. • In fact, the reality of cultural differences - individual, group, and organizational has universally generated a diversity of moral codes where people do not subscribe to a single moral code. • This has resulted in "relative morality," which does not mean that there is no true objective moral code. • Relative morality has been justified on the basis of physical and cultural differences, and the constant promotion of tolerance for different views.
- 14. • In the context of social changes, communication and interactions with other countries, there has been significant cross-fertilization of ideas influencing people to make judgments on levels of morality (Furrow 2005). • It is generally known that once a promise or commitment is made there is an obligation to keep it. • Some scientists and engineers may not keep their obligations because they are not quite comfortable with themselves, or because of others giving them differing advice. • The result is diminished willpower, or intention, to fulfill their obligation. Intentions are the outcomes of deliberating with self to decide what to do (Williams, 2006, page 18). • While beliefs are not always under voluntary control, it is true that there is a choice of what to believe, and, as a result, choice is controlled. • In this regard, the scientist and engineer must remain open-minded and always be ready to evaluate arguments and findings from different perspectives.
- 15. • Consequently, it must be recognized that the end does not justify the means, a rational basis must be established for dealing with uncertainty in any type of research, some types of research may not be ethically justifiable, and, while researchers prefer to minimize errors, there are those who prefer false positives over false negatives (Shrader-Frechette, 1994). • If the act that the individual scientist or engineer performs is in their power not to perform, then they are responsible for that act and must face the consequences (Chisholm, 2008). • This would establish the morality of the action. • It must be noted, however, that the orientation to autonomous or independent individual-level action is shaped and reshaped by a changing society.
- 16. • As a result, the central influencing factor is the quality of individual- level socialization despite the changing nature of the context. • It is further reinforced by law enforcement, cultural influences, accountability arrangements, and monitoring and evaluation standards. • In addition to these, the promotion of equity initiatives (Kezar et al., 2008) would serve to reduce ethical lapses in universities and other settings.