Moral Foundations

Abstract

Institutional researchers can be confronted with ethical quandaries. Pressures from their institutions can conflict with professional standards and general ethical requirements. Analyses that appear to be neutral can conceal hidden assumptions that are unintentionally harmful to those individuals whom institutions have a responsibility to protect. Resolving these quandaries ethically requires recognizing them when they occur and understanding that they cannot be adequately addressed by appeal to a simple professional code of conduct. An ethical resolution requires the application of moral imagination and impartial judgment.