Drawing on 171 in-depth interviews with physicists at universities in the United States and the UK, this study examines the narratives of 48 physicists to explain the concept of ethical ambiguity: the border where legitimate and illegitimate conduct is blurred. Researchers generally assume that scientists agree on what constitutes both egregious and more routine forms of misconduct in science. The results of this study show that scientists perceive many scenarios as ethically gray, rather than black and white. Three orientations to (...) ethical ambiguity are considered—altruism, inconsequential outcomes, and preserving the status quo—that allow possibly questionable behavior to persist unchallenged. Each discursive strategy is rationalized as promoting the collective interest of science rather than addressing what is ethically correct or incorrect. The results of this study suggest that ethics training in science should focus not only on fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism and more routine forms of misconduct, but also on strategies for resolving ethically ambiguous scenarios where appropriate action may not be clear. (shrink)

From my own standpoint as a scientist, I, in this paper attempt to explore the scientific judgement-making process from an ethical perspective. In the process of developing truthful scientific knowledge, there are a myriad of judgements to make for the scientist. However, our contemporary world, dominated by technology, rules and regulations, presents us with less unconditioned opportunities for exercising our judgmental abilities. Any deliberation about a choice of action within our practice is, in a manner, made for us, and not (...) by us. The challenges that we meet is largely assumed solved either by rules of conduct or by formulas where the right thing to do is based on mechanical computations, or as within utilitarianism where one focuses on the consequences of an action. My thesis is, however, that virtue ethics and the concept of Phronesis, as a framework, is better suited to grasp the peculiarity of the scientific practice compared to the contemporary mind-set. Hence, I will try to display my perspective and show how virtue ethics can lead to enhanced understanding of both the epistemological and the ethical parts of the scientific practice. (shrink)