The Ethics of Research

In the last few hundred pages, weve o=ered a lot of practical advice, but almost as much preaching about creating social contracts with your readers, projecting an ethos that will encourage
their trust, guarding against biases in collecting and reporting evidence, avoiding plagiarism, and so on. Now we want to share with
you the underlying ethical issues that shape our advice, hoping
that when you close this book, youll give them more thought.
Everything weve said about research re?ects our belief that
it is a profoundly social activity that connects you both to those
who will use your research and to those who might bene>tor
su=erfrom that use. But it also connects you and your readers
to everyone whose research you used and beyond them to everyone whose research they used. To understand our responsibility
to those in that network, now and in the future, we have to move
beyond mere technique to think about the ethics of civil communication.
We start with two broad conceptions of the word ethics: the forging of bonds that create a community and the moral choices we
face when we act in that community. The term ethical comes from
the Greek ethos, meaning either a communitys shared customs or
an individuals character, good or bad. So far, we have focused on
the community-building aspects of research, the bonds we create
with our readers and our sources. But as does any social activity,
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research challenges us to de>ne our individual ethical principles

and then to make choices that honor or violate them.
At >rst glance, a purely academic researcher seems on relatively
safe ethical groundwe are less tempted to sacri>ce principle for
gain than, say, a Wall Street analyst evaluating a stock that her
>rm wants her to push on investors, or a scientist paid by a drug
company to prove that a product is safe (regardless of whether
it works). No teacher will pay you to write a report supporting her
views, and you probably wont have occasion to fake results to gain
famelike the American researcher who became famous (and
powerful) for discovering an HIV virus, when he had in fact borrowed it from a laboratory in France.
Even so, you will face such choices from the very beginning of
your project. Some are the obvious Thou shalt nots:

Ethical researchers do not plagiarize or claim credit for the

results of others.
They do not misreport sources, invent data, or fake results.
They do not submit data whose accuracy they dont trust, unless they say so.
They do not conceal objections that they cannot rebut.
They do not caricature or distort opposing views.
They do not destroy data or conceal sources important for
those who follow.

We apply these principles easily enough to obvious cases: the biologist who used india ink to fake genetic marks on his mice,
the Enron accountants and their auditors at Arthur Andersen who
shredded source documents, the government political advisers
who erase e-mails, or the student who submits a paper purchased
on the Internet.
More challenging are those occasions when ethical principles take us beyond any simple moral Do not to what we should
af>rmatively Do. When we think about ethical choices in that way,

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we move beyond simple con?icts between our own self-interest

and the honest pursuit of truth, or between what we want for ourselves and what is good for or at least not harmful to others. If reporting research is genuinely a collaborative e=ort between readers and writers to >nd the best solution to shared problems, then
the challenge is to >nd ways to create ethical partnerships to make
ethical choices (what we traditionally call character) that can help
build ethical communities.
Such a challenge raises more questions than we can answer
here. Some of those questions have answers that we all agree on;
others are controversial. The three of us answer some of them
di=erently. But one thing we agree on is that research o=ers every
researcher an ethical invitation that, when not just dutifully accepted but embraced, can serve the best interests of both researchers and their readers.

When you create, however brie?y, a community of shared

understanding and interest, you set a standard for your work
higher than any you could set for yourself alone.
When you explain to others why your research should change
their understanding and beliefs, you must examine not only
your own understanding and interests, but your responsibility
to them if you convince them to change theirs.
When you acknowledge your readers alternative views, including their strongest objections and reservations, you move
closer not just to more reliable knowledge, better understanding, and sounder beliefs, but to honoring the dignity and human needs of your readers.

In other words, when you do research and report it as a conversation among equals working toward greater knowledge and better
understanding, the ethical demands you place on yourself should
redound to the bene>t of alleven when we cannot all agree on a
common good. When you decline that conversation, you risk harming yourself and possibly those who depend on your work.
It is this concern for the integrity of the common work of a

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community that underscores why researchers condemn plagiarism so strongly. Plagiarism is theft, but of more than words. By
not acknowledging a source, the plagiarist steals the modest recognition that honest researchers should receive, the respect that a
researcher spends a lifetime struggling to earn. And that weakens
the community as a whole, by reducing the value of research to
those who follow.
That is true in all research communities, including the undergraduate classroom. The student plagiarist steals not only from
his sources, but from his colleagues by making their work seem
lesser by comparison to what was bought or stolen. When such
intellectual thievery becomes common, the community grows
suspicious, then distrustful, then cynicalEveryone does it. Ill fall
behind if I dont. Teachers must then worry as much about not being tricked as about teaching and learning. Whats worse, the plagiarist compromises her own education and so steals from the
larger society that devotes its resources to training her and her
generation to do reliable work later, work that the community will
depend on.
In short, when you report your research ethically, you join a
community in a search for some common good. When you respect
sources, preserve and acknowledge data that run against your results, assert claims only as strongly as warranted, acknowledge
the limits of your certainty, and meet all the other ethical obligations on your report, you move beyond gaining a grade or other
material goodsyou earn the larger bene>t that comes from creating a bond with your readers. You discover that research focused
on the best interests of others is also in your own.