Ethics and Integrity in Research: Disciplines and Professions

Abstract

While it can be argued that the values, principles, and standards that underpin ethical research must apply to all disciplines and professions that conduct research, it remains the case that most, if not all, still seek to devise and apply distinctive ethical codes and/or guidelines that they perceive as specific to their own, specialized field. While highly generalized overarching principles can be accepted, their generality may be regarded as so vague they are impossible to disagree with. Moreover they fail to assist researchers within the specialist professional domain with practical solutions to the ethical issues they may have to confront in their everyday practice. Such an approach could be regarded as a restrictive practice and domain protectionism – but there are also clear practical advantages in a discipline being able to manage its own professional practices and rarely is it the case that generic codes provide some form of “off-the-shelf” solution to an ethical problem within the discipline’s domain. This chapter addresses issues that form the backcloth to the concerns raised by the authors in this section of the handbook.