RES701- Blog 10 “Research Ethics”

This week we were talking about ethics that needs to be considered when doing research and the difference between ethics and moral. So the topic for this blog will be about Ethics.

What is Ethics?

Ethics can be considered as a system of principles that concerns with the well being of the individuals and the society, and is often described as moral philosophy. The word “ethics” is derived from a Greek work called “ethos” which means custom or habit.

Why is it important?

Ethics are important because of the following reasons:

• It allows the basic needs of humans to be satisfied which can be things like being honest, trust, etc.
• It helps us to create credibility in our research.
• It protects the people who are involved in the research from getting harmed. This way if any research needs humans as test subjects, the researcher wont be allowed to conduct experiments or studies that could harm the person physically or psychologically.
• The researcher can be supervised so that they remain in their scope of research topic.
• It is also important because it allows the every individuals the right to take part in the research or to reject the proposal if they are uncomfortable with it.

For every research, there are some ethical principles that are important and needs to be considered while conducting a research and they are things like honesty, integrity, intellectual property, openness, respecting colleagues, avoiding discrimination, confidentiality, animal care, legality, etc. This allows the research to be implemented in a safe manner without having too many consequences.

Difference between Ethics and Moral

The major difference between ethics and morals is that, ethics mainly refers to a set of rules that are used to define the right behaviors, or even actions whereas morals are considered as guiding principles which are different for every individuals.

We could say that morals are basics of ethics but ethics cant be morals. The reason is because morals are opinions and beliefs that a person would like to follow and it is sometimes not practical. On the other hand, ethics has to practical so that before the research is approved, they are checked if it is acceptable or not.

Conclusion

In the end, it is important to look into the ethical side of things before the research proposal so that the researcher can have a brief knowledge about the individuals and the society that are going to be affected from the research. Also, researchers should follow the ethics for every research and if they want they can also include their morals as an extra set of rules which can be followed during their research.