Virtue ethics is currently one of three major approaches in normative ethics. It may, initially, be identified as the one that emphasizes the virtues, or moral character, in contrast to the approach that emphasizes duties or rules (deontology) or that emphasizes the consequences of actions (consequentialism). Suppose it is obvious that someone in need should be helped. A utilitarian will point to the fact that the consequences of doing so will maximize well-being, a deontologist to the fact that, in doing (...) so the agent will be acting in accordance with a moral rule such as “Do unto others as you would be done by” and a virtue ethicist to the fact that helping the person would be charitable or benevolent. (shrink)

Book reviewed in this article: Principles of Biomedical Ethics. By Tom L. Beauchamp and James F. Childress.

Scientific publication is immensely important to the scientific endeavour. There is, however, concern that rewarding scientists chiefly on publication creates a perverse incentive, allowing careless and fraudulent conduct to thrive, compounded by the predisposition of top-tier journals towards novel, positive findings rather than investigations confirming null hypothesis. This potentially compounds a reproducibility crisis in several fields, and risks undermining science and public trust in scientific findings. To date, there has been comparatively little modelling on factors that influence science trustworthiness, despite (...) the importance of quantifying the problem. We present a simple phenomenological model with cohorts of diligent, careless and unethical scientists, with funding allocated by published outputs. This analysis suggests that trustworthiness of published science in a given field is influenced by false positive rate, and pressures for positive results. We find decreasing available funding has negative consequences for resulting trustworthiness, and examine strategies to combat propagation of irreproducible science. (shrink)

When scientists act unethically, their actions can cause harm to participants, undermine knowledge creation, and discredit the scientific community. Responsible Conduct of Research training i...

Abstract Agent-based virtue ethics is a unitary normative theory according to which the moral status of actions is entirely dependent upon the moral status of an agent's motives and character traits. One of the problems any such approach faces is to capture the common-sense distinction between an agent's doing the right thing, and her doing it for the right (or wrong) reason. In this paper I argue that agent-based virtue ethics ultimately fails to capture this kind of fine-grained distinction, and (...) to this extent ought to be rejected. I focus first on Michael Slote's agent-based theory, according to which the moral status of actions depends upon an agent's actual motives, and argue that this leads to a paradox. I then consider whether the ?counterfactual? version of agent-basing favoured by Rosalind Hursthouse and Linda Zagzebski fares any better, and conclude that it does not. (shrink)

Imagine first the case of J (who might be anybody, jemand). J used to inhabit a social order, or rather an area within a social order, where socially approved roles were unusually well-defined. Responsibilities were allocated to each such role and each sphere of role-structured activity was clearly demarcated. These allocations and demarcations were embodied in and partly constituted by the expectations that others had learned to have of those who occupied each such role. For those who occupied those roles (...) to disappoint those expectations by failing to discharge their assigned responsibilities was to invite severe disapproval and other sanctions. To refuse to find one's place within the hierarchies of approved roles, or to have been refused a place, because judged unfit for any such role, was to be classified as socially deviant and irresponsible. The key moral concepts that education had inculcated into J were concepts of duty and responsibility. His fundamental moral beliefs were that each of us owes it to others to perform her or his assigned duties and to discharge her or his assigned responsibilities. A good human being performs those duties, discharges those responsibilities, and does not trespass into areas that are not her or his concern. A philosopher who comes across the likes of J will understand his attitudes as cultural parodies, in part of Plato (conceiving of justice as requiring ‘that each do her or his own work and not meddle with many things’ Republic 433a) and in part of Kant (doing one's duty just because it is one's duty and not for the sake of any further end), authors who had influenced J's school teachers. A sociologist will entertain the suspicion that in certain types of social order it may be only in the form of parodies that some types of concept can continue to find expression. But for the moment let us put this thought on one side and return to J. (shrink)

This open access book offers insights into the development of the ground-breaking Global Code of Conduct for Research in Resource-Poor Settings (GCC) and the San Code of Research Ethics. Using a new, intuitive moral framework predicated on fairness, respect, care and honesty, both codes target ethics dumping – the export of unethical research practices from a high-income setting to a lower- or middle-income setting. The book is a rich resource of information and argument for any research stakeholder who opposes double (...) standards in research. It will be indispensable for applicants to European Union framework programmes, as the GCC is now a mandatory reference document for EU funding. (shrink)

This study re-examined the impact of personal and organizational values congruency on positive work outcomes and investigated the extent to which this relationship is affected by demographic variables. Data collection paralleled an earlier study (Posner and Schmidt, Journal of Business Ethics 12,1993, 341) and validated those findings, lending additional credibility to the continuing importance of this phenomenon. Both personal values congruence and organizational values clarity were significantly related to commitment, satisfaction, motivation, anxiety, work stress, and ethics using a cross-sectional sample (...) of 711 managen from across the United States. Gender, educational level, and functional area did not impact these relationships, although years of experience (expressed by age, managerial experience, and hierarchical level) did make a difference. (shrink)

Irresponsible research practices damaging the value of science has been an increasing concern among researchers, but previous work failed to estimate the prevalence of all forms of irresponsible research behavior. Additionally, these analyses have not included articles published in the last decade from 2011 to 2020. This meta-analysis provides an updated meta-analysis that calculates the pooled estimates of research misconduct and questionable research practices, and explores the factors associated with the prevalence of these issues. The estimates, committing RM concern at (...) least 1 of FFP and QRPs concern 1 or more QRPs, were 2.9% and 12.5%, respectively. In addition, 15.5% of researchers witnessed others who had committed at least 1 RM, while 39.7% were aware of others who had used at least 1 QRP. The results document that response proportion, limited recall period, career level, disciplinary background and locations all affect significantly the prevalence of these issues. This meta-analysis addresses a gap in existing meta-analyses and estimates the prevalence of all forms of RM and QRPs, thus providing a better understanding of irresponsible research behaviors. (shrink)

Governments and companies are increasingly promoting and organizing Responsible Innovation. It is, however, unclear how the seemingly incompatible demands for responsibility, which is associated with care and caution, can be harmonized with demands for innovation, which is associated with risk-taking and speed. We turn to the tradition of virtue ethics and argue that it can be a strong accomplice to Responsible Innovation by focussing on the agential side of innovation. Virtue ethics offers an adequate response to the epistemic and moral (...) complexity in innovation and encourages moral behaviour. We enumerate a number of virtues that people involved in Responsible Innovation would need to cultivate both related to responsibility, such as justice, anticipation, civility and inclusion, and virtues related to innovation, such as courage, dedication, curiosity and creativity. We put forward practical wisdom as a key virtue to regulate relevant virtues and to deal with the tension between responsibility and innovation. Practical wisdom helps an agent to find an appropriate mean in exercising and expressing the other virtues—where the mean is relative to the specific context of action and the role and abilities of the agent. (shrink)

The illusion that Kant respects persons comes from ascribing contemporary meanings to purely technical terms within his second formulation of the categorical imperative, “[A]ct so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of another, always as an end and never as a means only”. When we realize that “humanity” means rational nature and “person” means the supersensible self (homo noumenon), we find that we are to respect, not human selves in all their diversity (homo phaenomenon), (...) but rational selves in all their sameness, in their unvarying conformity to the universal principles of pure practical reason. Contemporary individualism gets no support from Kant. (shrink)

Kant’s moral philosophy is challenged by the so-called “Socratic Paradox”: If free will and pure practical reason are to be identified, as Kant argues, then there seems to be no room for immoral actions that are to be imputed to our individual freedom. The paper argues that Kant’s conception of rationalizing helps us to avoid the Socratic Paradox, and to understand how immoral actions can be imputed to our individual freedom and responsibility. In rationalizing, we misuse our capacity of reason (...) in order to construct the illusion according to which we are not bound to the absolute demand of the moral law, but rather subject to exceptions and excuses. Finally, the paper interprets the three rules of “common sense” in Kant’s Critique of the Power of Judgment in terms of an antidote to rationalizing. (shrink)

Universities and other research institutions are increasingly providing additional training in research integrity to improve the quality and reliability of research. Various training courses have been developed, with diverse learning goals and content. Despite the importance of training that focuses on moral character and professional virtues, there remains a lack of training that adopts a virtue ethics approach. To address this, we, a European Commission-funded consortium, have designed a train-the-trainer programme for research integrity. The programme is based on (1) virtue (...) ethics, (2) the ethos of science, (3) learning by doing and (4) learner-centred teaching. The blended learning programme combines e-learning modules with participatory group sessions. Trainers are taught how to guide researchers through a series of structured exercises for fostering reflection on scientific virtues, and how to promote understanding and application of the European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity. Trainers are provided with adaptable tools and resources that can be used and combined in different ways. The programme implementation began in Spring 2020 and 470 trainers have participated to date. When trainers were asked to grade – between 0 (very bad) and 10 (excellent) – the e-learning modules and the participatory exercises, 60% scored a grade 8 or higher (median = 8, IQR = 2) for the e-learning modules, whereas 80% scored a grade 8 or higher (median = 9, IQR = 1) for the participatory exercises. A majority felt that the training helped them as a trainer to learn about ways to organise and teach a research integrity course (82%) and would recommend the interactive exercises to others (92%). Trainers have educated over 3300 researchers in Europe using our virtue-based approach. The VIRT2UE train-the-trainer programme fosters research integrity by providing trainers with exercises and tools which enable them to stimulate the development of good researchers across Europe. (shrink)