A Professional Ethics for Researchers?

Abstract

Historical research has shown that, at its inception, research ethics was conceived as distinct from existing discourses of professional ethics. Subsequently, this distinction has been maintained and, as a result, the discourse of research ethics appears to be external to and independent of the practices it normatively analyses and comments upon. This chapter challenges these founding preconceptions and considers if research ethics can be understood as a professional ethics. Therefore, this chapter examines the criteria sociological research identifies as constitutive of a profession, and while one might conclude that research is obviously not formally instantiated as a profession, some of the sociological criteria have significant relevance. In this light it is argued that we might rethink the notion of research ethics in terms of a professional ethics. To do so would be to more clearly embed ethical discourse in the practice(s) of research, something that is consistent with the current turn to integrity.