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Chapter 4: The Professional Integrity of Social Science Researchers – can Virtue Ethics Help?
Abstract
This chapter is concerned with the professional integrity of researchers in social science. Social science researchers who undertake data collection and fieldwork, which involves spending time with those who have volunteered to be part of the research, have ethical responsibilities towards those who participate in their research. Particularly when research is publicly funded, they also have duties towards the social groups they study, and to wider society in which the findings of the research are of relevance. The position taken here is that social science researchers should be regarded as professionals who share common concerns and practices similar to the professionals working in health care.
... As a result, and given the need to interact directly with research participants, virtuous characteristics of the qualitative researcher become essential drivers for underpinning ethical research. For instance, research participants need to rely on the researcher's integrity, so the integrous researcher commits to being trusted and trustworthy (Melia, 2018). ...
Pilot studies within qualitative inquiry are crucial yet often hidden aspects of research design. In this article, we argue for pilots to have greater visibility. We explore the role of a pilot in providing a foundation for enhancing ethical reflexivity, drawing on a recent pilot study within a tertiary healthcare education setting. The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) presents a unique environment with complex stakeholder relationships. There is a lack of consensus nationally and internationally on whether all SoTL projects require consideration by institutional ethics review bodies. A pilot study offers an opportunity for ethical steerage of a research project, reflecting ethics in practice whilst augmenting any procedural ethics review requirements. We propose that a qualitative pilot study, as a design strategy, can enhance ethical conduct by researchers. Within SoTL specifically, the pilot can provide an opportunity for researchers to demonstrate a commitment to a pedagogy of care spanning the project’s duration, signifying a commitment to enduring teacher-student relationships within the broader learning environment. Beyond tertiary settings, we believe the pilot study, as a space for ethical reflexivity, has applicability to research settings where caring for and being seen to care for the wider participant community is a critical ethical consideration.
In this chapter we outline the methodological and ethical approaches employed in our research exploring stigma associated with Tourette’s syndrome (TS) through secondary qualitative analysis. Rooted in social constructivism, the study examined anonymised interview data from two prior studies, adopting a hybrid thematic analysis to uncover how stigma manifests and impacts individuals with Tourette’s. We highlight the benefits of secondary analysis, including its cost-effectiveness and ethical advantages, such as reducing participant burden while ensuring robust data use. We also address critical ethical considerations grounded in principlist and virtue ethics, with a focus on participant autonomy, non-maleficence, and justice. Additionally, we reflect on our role as researchers, the insider/outsider dynamic, and the ethical challenges of our work. By engaging directly with the Tourette’s community through advisory groups and participatory research, we ensured the research was both scientifically rigorous and aligned with the lived experiences of those who experienced TS stigma.
The concept of practical reason is central to contemporary thought on ethics and the philosophy of law - acting well means acting for good reasons. Explaining this requires several stages. How do reasons relate to actions at all, as incentives and in explanations? What are values, how do they relate to human nature, and how do they enter practical reasoning? How do the concepts of 'right and wrong' fit in, and in what way do they involve questions of mutual trust among human beings? How does our moral freedom - our freedom to form our own moral commitments - relate to our responsibilities to each other? How is this final question transposed into law and legal commitments? This book explores these questions, vital to understanding the nature of law and morality. It presents an account of practical reason. It also offers a reinterpretation of Kant's views on moral autonomy and Adam Smith's on self-command, marrying Smith's 'moral sentiments' to Kant's 'categorical imperative'.
Document formatted into pages; contains x, 146 p. Thesis (Ph.D.)--Bowling Green State University, 2007. Includes bibliographical references. Mode of access: World Wide Web. System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader.
The article argues that a consideration of the idea, common in ancient ethical theory, that virtue is a skill or craft, reveals that some common construals of it are mistaken. The analogy between virtue and skill is not meant to suggest that virtue is an unreflective habit of practised action. Rather what interests ancient ethical theorists is the intellectual structure of a skill, one demanding grasp of the principles defining the field and an ability to reflect on the justification of particular actions. This is brought out with reference particularly to the discussion of virtue as analogous with skill in Plato's early Socratic dialogues. The demands made of the virtuous agent by philosophers who regard virtue as analogous to skill are akin to the demands made by more recent theories of morality which demand that the moral agent be able to reflect on her practices, extract the principles that these depend on, and produce justification when needed. This point about ancient ethical theories enables us to appreciate their distance from modern versions of ‘virtue ethics’ ‐ which stress the importance of the traditions and contexts within which the content of the virtues is learned, and place less importance on the need for intellectual justification. The type of virtue ethics defended by Alasdair Maclntyre provides an instructive example of this contrasting kind of theory.