Ethics

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Ethics

• To do the right thing you need to know what the
  right thing is.

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ETHICAL ISSUES
PHILOSOPHICAL QUESTIONS SOCIETAL NORMS CODES OF
BEHAVIOR
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• Rights and Obligations of the
• Respondent
• The obligation to be truthful versus
• The right to Privacy
• The need for Deception versus The
  right to be informed
• The right to safety

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• Rights and Obligations of the
• Researcher
• The purpose of research is research
• Objectivity
• Misrepresenting research
• Protect the right to confidentiality
• of both subjects and clients
• Dissemination of faulty conclusions
• Advocacy research

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• Rights and Obligations of Client
• Sponsor (User)
• Ethics between buyer and seller
• Open relationship with research suppliers
• Open relationship with interested parties
• Privacy
• Commitment to research
• Pseudo-pilot studies

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Advocacy Research

• Research to support a specific legal claim

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Pseudo-Pilot Studies

• The researcher is told that the study is the
  first of many in a more comprehensive study

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Drug use
The police authority is conducting research into
illicit drug use. They conduct telephone surveys
where they do not tell respondents that they are
the police.
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Utilitarianism

• The end justifies the means
• Deception was justified because the subjects
  would never have revealed information about drug
  use if they knew that the police commission
  funded the study

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Moral idealism

• A personal philosophy whereby conduct is
  evaluated on the basis of adherence to or
  violation of a universal right
• Deception is wrong. No rationale makes it right.

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Ethical relativism

• It depends
• Conduct is evaluated on the basis of context,
  often cultural
• In this context it was OK to do. Deception is
  consistent with the corporate culture of police
  work. It would have been wrong for