Ethics in the Research Process

For some time, a dominant view has held that careful consideration must always be given to the ethical issues that arise from the way that social scientists go about their work. Understanding of those issues and the way that they are defined has, in turn, been guided by a belief that psychologists, sociologists, and others should practice good science in the epistemic or methodological sense, and that their actions will need to be good, ethically speaking, as well. Often it is the recognition of how difficult it can be to meet these demands that gives rise to discussions about ethics in the research process. In other cases, the discussions originate in the need to arrive at practical recommendations or judgments about specific types of actions ...