9 Ethical Issues in Social Research

Subhendra Bhowmick

1. Introduction

By now you know that social research generally involves humans studying humans. Since social research entails continual interaction with people in differing socio-cultural and historical settings, ethical issues assume importance. In fact, moral dilemmas and difficult ethical choices are endemic to social research. After all, research involves many actors playing many roles and pursuing a variety of different goals simultaneously. It consists of relations between various stakeholders: subjects, researchers, sponsors and the general public. Moreover, social research has implications for people researchers write about and analyse. In this sense, ethical problems are a major component of doing social science (see Barnes 1977; Bulmer 1982).

Gone are the days when a scholar could take refuge in the scientific robustness of her/his methodological criteria or the supposed objectivity and value neutrality of her/his research endeavour. Increasingly, researchers have come to accept that there is no such thing as ‘value-free science’ and that every study has ethical implications. Arguably, social researchers are duty-bound to examine their own values and consider the potential impact of their research on those studied.

You will find social research methodology textbooks having chapters on ethical issues in social research. It has by now become customary to illustrate the ethical dilemma of social research by referencing to the Wichita Jury study, the Glacier project, the Project Camelot, Whyte’s Street Corner Society (see Barnes 1977: 22ff), Stanley Milgram’s (1965) Obedience Study, Laud Humphreys’ (1970) Tearoom Trade.

This module dwells on the general framing of ethical questions as part of social research per se. It does not focus on the ethical ambiguities (or limitations) of a particular method of research (such as covert methods or ethnography).

2. Multiple Concerns and the Eluding Consensus

Ethical problems are understandably multidimensional and controversial. Even the most participatory of social research may not completely escape an element of hierarchy between the researcher and the researched. There is always sufficient power differential between the two. It becomes manifest especially when the researcher is dealing with the underprivileged, stigmatised and vulnerable groups. One way of addressing the ethical problems might lay in the redressal of this power imbalance.

However, Talcott Parsons (1969) emphasises the collaborative and participatory nature of social research. According to him, the relationship between the professional and the subject is a solitary one. It is more akin to marriage where ‘for better or for worse’ sentiment prevails rather than a market relationship having a ‘quid pro quo’. According to him, voluntary cooperation with and participation in research should be made part of the general citizenship obligations.

Others view social research as largely harmless for it does not place the respondents at risk. There is nothing in social research that permits the manipulation of persons against their will. For example, Edward Shils (1959) finds social research too small-scale to raise acute moral issues. The stimuli used in social research are brief, non-recurrent and quasi-real and are rarely of great significance to leave any lasting impression on the subject. The inconsequentiality and peripheral nature of stimuli and the transient character of the effects introduced do not warrant any great consensus over ethical problems.

Moreover, social research is generally interested in aggregate data (and not in individual identities) over a wide range of issues. It produces knowledge about the collective characteristics of a population and very rarely (and that too in a limited fashion) about individuals. The data it seeks are in the nature of how many and in what proportion and not on whom. Since modern complex and open societies need objective information on which to base policy decisions, everyone should be obliged to participate in research as it will benefit all. Social research need not benefit participants alone. Researchers’ rights to contribute to an understanding of human condition should be respected in a free society. In other words, anything that advances science is acceptable provided it does no harm to those studied.

However, very few today advocate total abandonment of ethical restriction of any kind on the advancement of knowledge. Most social researchers agree that the ethical legitimacy of social research has to be decided on a case-by-case basis. They are sceptical of the absolutist faith in the notion of science. Social research cannot be given free play in the name of science whose ultimate goal is to know. Most would favour the middle path – synthesising the value and worth of science and the morality of the research profession. For them, violation of scholarship through the political uses of research findings is as deplorable as violation of the autonomy of individuals and the sanctity of institutions.

There was a time when amoral professionalism was more a virtue than otherwise. Social researchers were called upon to develop moral positions and espouse political causes outside their professional domains. That was also the time when we were not prepared to abandon the idea of neutral fact. To be sure, for a galaxy of social scientists, the fact-value distinction was/is not merely a conceptual distinction but also a reflection of reality. A social researcher owed not so much a moral as a cognitive obligation to provide objective analysis of something outside one’s own subjectivity (see Shils 1980). No doubt, the professed ideal has been to not let one’s values direct, distrust or discredit one’s work while being sensitive to its ethical and political implications. The roots of this ideal go back to Max Weber (1978) who believed in maintaining science as a domain separate from values one may hold as citizens or moral agents. There is no gainsaying that a researcher’s political, religious, ethnic or cultural biases, interests and background assumptions do influence his research.

It is a truism that not only our politics and ethics affect our epistemology but also epistemology affects our politics and ethics. Fact is just as inseparable from value as form is from matter. There are no pure values or pure facts for that matter. There are value-laden facts as they are selected by values humans hold dear. Researcher’s interests and perspective determine what counts as a relevant fact. Given this epistemological puzzle, achieving value neutrality appears an impracticable venture. To the extent that social researchers are creatures of their culture, an ethical code of conduct has to factor in value dilemmas arising from researcher’s enmeshment with particular sets of institutional or structural arrangements and the national or cultural set of values.

But then the development of scientific knowledge has witnessed both the abusive and the scrupulous researchers. Opinions have equally been divided as to the degree to which social research is used to benefit mankind notwithstanding its heavy reliance on interviewing and observation. The participant’s supposed increased self-awareness or enjoyment or sense of fulfilment in a research enterprise does not preclude the need for normatively defined boundaries for social researchers. Indeed, the flagrant abuse of human subjects occurs when their time and energy is wasted by studiesthat are trivial, ill conceived, or clumsily executed. Poorly conceptualised research based on faulty methodology and testing trivial hypotheses does no less harm to subjects than an ethically dubious one.

In a way, ethical conflict is potentially present in all social research inasmuch as the values of science may conflict with the values of social unit being studied. Also, ethically the social sciences should serve the entire humanity. But in a world full of conflicts, it is well-nigh impossible to serve the interests of all simultaneously or in equal measure. That is where moral precepts and procedures contained in an ethical code come handy to a social researcher. As Punch (1986: 70) rightly remarks, ‘moral force of academic convention [is] the most appropriate form of control for the conduct of research’. Even when such a code offers no recipe to a budding researcher, a ‘review of dilemmas faced by previous ethnographers [researchers] can enable researchers to anticipate difficulties and to establish useful guidelines before entering the field’ (VanderStaay 2005: 372). Not only do such codes generate public trust and impart research apprenticeship to new professionals but also serve as a basis for informal or formal sanctions. They act as norm-establishing mechanisms for the community of researchers and help direct future research along ethically desirable lines.

3. The Researcher and the Researched

Social research operates at a number of levels. It involves issues like mutual consent of both researcher and the researched to the research in question, an awareness of individual and cultural biases and ensuring that they do not creep in research, sensitivity to the effects of the method on the observed behaviour, pre-emption or prevention of actual or potential damage to subjects during and after research, and generating public confidence in the discipline and science by way of processes and products of research. However, much of the writings and discussions of ethical problems in social research centres on the relationship between the researcher and the researched. Here too, most discussions about ethical issues revolve around two main categories: the use of informed consent and the possibility of harmful effects on research participants. In particular, protecting the subjects of social research assumes added significance in the case of vulnerable social groups with least resistance to aspiring career researchers.

In general, there are six forbidden processes in the conduct of social research: coercion or exercise of undue pressure to induce a subject to participate when he/she would rather not; deception or misleading the subject on what the study is all about; invasion of privacy or intrusion into matters that the subject would rather keep to herself/himself; breach of confidentiality or permitting information about individual subjects to be passed to others; stress or the psychological difficulties that participation in a study might cause; collective injury or risks and harms that a study might cause to others beyond the individual subject herself/himself (Bower and Gasparis 1978: 12). More importantly, initial voluntary participation, and free withdrawal from the research at any point of time are considered to be universal rights of research participants to be respected by all social researchers.

Even, in social experiments such as Milgram’s obedience study more subjects have reported pleasure than distress. Likewise, Humphreys (1980: 714) claims to have protected his respondents: ‘not one of my respondents has ever reported suffering harm as a result of my research …and many have expressed appreciation for ways they have benefited from the study’.

However, in pluralist societies permitting two-way interaction between researchers/scientists and participants/citizens, deliberate deception or concealment of research aims continue to pose ethical problems. The diversity of ethical positions of researchers, along with the variety of social and cultural contexts in which empirical research is conducted, further complicates ethical questions in social enquiry (Barnes 1977). The collection of data by covert research or unobtrusive measures, or even by open methods, raises a distinct set of ethical problems (see Homan 1980, 1992). In the Indian context, Andre Beteille (1975: 26) feels compelled to make a distinction between ‘field ethics’ and ‘field tactics’ in anthropological research, while T. N. Madan (1975: 131) talks of ‘the great indecency of field trip’ in one of his exasperated moments. As eminent an anthropologist as Mead (1969) underlines the need to be truthful about one’s research purpose. To her, presenting facts within their correct cultural framework is a crucial ethical issue. Indeed, the more powerless the subjects, the more important are the matters of ethics.

The thumb rule for following ethical principles in social research is simple to state though hard to implement: researcher should not indulge in any unethical practices unless convinced that the benefits accruing through them (to society) outweigh the costs to (subjects). Put another way, issues such as harm to subjects and the violation of data confidentiality should be calculated on an individual cost versus societal benefit ratio. But then the ever-recurrent intractable problem remains: who should be entrusted with the task of preparing this great balance sheet? The pendulum has swung from the committee of peers to individual researchers to legislative bodies to institutional review boards.

Also, there are sceptics who refuse to accept that research subjects are concerned with ethics or privacy. In any case, privacy is a relative notion; some cultures value it more, whereas others have a muted and faint recognition of it. Similarly, deception (a pejorative term) can be equally called diplomacy or propriety in other contexts. Moreover, any strict adherence to above-mentioned ethical guidelines will hamper free research on all publicly accountable behaviour, for example, investigating the behaviour of those in authority. For some, ‘subterfuge may be an acceptable and ethical researcher tactic in studies of public roles where the individual(s) studied would not knowingly permit the data to be collected’ (Smith 1975: 14).

These days the principle of causing no actual harm to the subjects is almost taken to be axiomatic by social researchers. Even Humphreys (1970) ensured that his male homosexual subjects’ identity are not revealed and remain confined to the ‘tearoom’. Causing physical damage to subjects is out of question for any researcher. Few researchers who did engage in social experiments ensured that their participation did not lead to any psychological harm, stress and embarrassment to subjects. The well-known (or infamous?) Milgram experiment did go through a process of debriefing to explicate to participants the background and aims of research and the need to subject them to deception. Yet, in some types of social research (say among slum dwellers or AIDS patients or a village community), the very act of carrying out research can raise the expectations of the participants. They might start believing that change may ensue in the wake of their being researched. A social researcher needs to be open about this even at the cost of one’s research. At times, many communities develop research fatigue on account of their being seriously over-researched. A social researcher has to factor in all these considerations as part of her/his preparatory repertoire.

Self-Check Exercise 1:

Question 1. What are the two main categories around which most discussions around ethics in social research revolve?

Answer: Most discussions about ethical issues revolve around two main categories: the use of informed consent and the possibility of harmful effects on research participants.

Question 2. What are the forbidden processes in the conduct of social research?

Answer: In general, there are six forbidden processes in the conduct of social research: coercion or exercise of undue pressure to induce a subject to participate when he/she would rather not; deception or misleading the subject on what the study is all about; invasion of privacy or intrusion into matters that the subject would rather keep to herself/himself; breach of confidentiality or permitting information about individual subjects to be passed to others; stress or the psychological difficulties that participation in a study might cause; collective injury or risks and harms that a study might cause to others beyond the individual subject herself/himself.

4. The Researcher and the Peer

A researcher is part of a wider community of scholars. Her/his research and actions as one of the members of this larger research fraternity have implications for other researchers as well as the professional credibility and public respectability of her/his metier. Generally, it is her/his peers who vouch for the integrity of her/his research endeavour and attendant scholarship. Her/his incompetence and ethical impropriety in executing a piece of research work can have serious repercussions not only for her/his own professional standing but also for other fellow researchers working in the similar or allied fields/disciplines as well as for the institution/university he/she is affiliated to. Moreover, for the one using participant observation, or other tools of qualitative data collection, reasons for selecting quotes or specifying particular incidents are best known to herself/himself and are generally not articulated. Her/his field notes and interview data remain largely invisible to her/his peers. This places a heavy responsibility on the academic integrity of such researcher, as he/she should come clean on the nature of her/his data. This would imply sharing how and where the data have been collected, how reliable and valid are they, and what successive interpretations he/she has placed on it. Expectedly, this would also include revealing the nature of her/his relationship with the field setting and with the subjects of her/his enquiry (Punch 1986: 15).

Increasingly, universities and research institutes are becoming more involved in research projects of all hue owing to pressures of resource generation. Against this backdrop, the quality and ethical soundness of the research work conducted by their staff hold a key to their reputation as well. Sure enough, any cavalier treatment of ethical imperatives in social research can tarnish the research enterprise in general. Clearly, it is not enough to act as a responsible and ethical researcher. It is equally important as being seen one by one’s peers. After all, one’s future as a researcher and a scholar depends on the collegial assessments of one’s peers.

The intimate location of social research in the wider circles of peers and professionals implies that a researcher is well versed with the ethical principles and practices of her/his profession. In practical terms, it would mean her/his reporting research findings in an open and transparent fashion bereft of her/his own prejudices and preconceptions. It would also mean inclusion of findings/arguments that contravene her/his own research findings. Needless to mention, he/she is expected to acknowledge all the sources of data and arguments. Thus, locating one’s research in relation to one’s peer group help internalise taken-for-granted ethical assumptions informing a given research field. Put differently, it helps encourage intellectual honesty among new generation of researchers.

By contrast, we also know that ‘success-at-any-rate’ mentality prevails as much in the world of research as elsewhere. Publication of research papers opens up important avenues for promotion and upward career mobility for academics. This impels many to give a short shrift to higher ethical standards in social research. For example, the practice of multi-authorship raises many ethical issues. Not only does it hamper judgements about quality versus quantity in publication but also affects the relative distribution of academic credit. If some of the authors are research scholars/assistants, the problem becomes more acute. Many a time, research scholars/assistants and other such academic underlings do not get adequate credit for their work and ideas. The growing cases of plagiarism are another case in point. Also, there is an impression that in many Indian universities Ph.D theses are systematically plagiarised with the active connivance of research guides and subject experts. In universities where Indian languages are the media of instruction, it seems to be a general practice to lift substantial portions from the English language theses and pass them on as original work in translated versions. The language divide ensures that such cases largely go undetected and unreported.

Yet, plagiarism is not merely confined to doctoral research. Even well established scholars resort to plagiarism to further their career goals. The dictum of ‘publish or perish’ widely prevalent in the academia propels them to go for short cuts to academic success. Relatively speaking, the pressures for publications are more acute in Western and American university context.

Obviously, peer review has its own limitations when confronted with such (hopefully rare) instances. At most, peer review can ensure the use of proper scientific method and procedures. But it is doubtful if it could uncover research fraud also. Most senior researchers are generally reluctant to criticise their colleagues who may also be long-time friends or might turn to be potential enemies after the criticism. A senior professor from a reputed institute was once expressing his disinclination to damn poorly done research projects by his own colleagues on the ground that sooner or later his name would spill over to those damned and thus lead to serious interpersonal problems.

Additionally, professional, collegial, and peer review has a tendency to discourage unconventional research. If certain types of research are not conducted in accordance with the ethical norms of the profession, it is likely that we have a distorted understanding of social reality. At its core, peer review does undermine rights of corporate bodies in research. Also, an impression has gone around that established names in a given field are hardly or less censured by peer review on account of usual ethical standards.

Viewed thus, peer review may not be the best means to ensure proper ethical conduct in research. Even otherwise, peer review addresses ethical issues from the standpoint of scientific community and not from that of the public. At times, the latter may be of greater consequence than the methodological misconduct of a particular researcher. The sole focus on following the proper methods of doing research and ethics (that is what the peer review is ideally expected to do) may not preclude the possibility of research on themes that might have disastrous economic and social consequences for those studied. Indeed, ethical issues extend well beyond questions about the quality of science or the soundness of method (Steneck 1984: 13).

5. The Researcher and the Sponsor

By all means, research is an expensive activity. Researchers do need sponsors to support their research. These sponsors could be some private foundation, trust or corporate body or public agencies including the state. However, public and private agencies that finance research are inclined to support projects that conform to their interests and values. In academic circles, it is generally assumed that a researcher in her/his roles as a paid consultant/academic entrepreneur is prone to distortions of social research findings. Such researchers supposedly compromise their ethical responsibility by overlooking the implications and consequences of their own research. At times, they think that as academics the production of knowledge is their ultimate goal and they should not be agonising over the uses of their research.

Over the years, the state sponsorship of research has exercised great many minds. Academics have been fiercely guarding their autonomy from the state. They have been wary of the inherent danger that the state-sponsored research occasions: socio-political values of the Establishment are likely to permeate the entire research exercise. At a time when social research is beginning to be disseminated to a broader public and have come to influence public opinion in unprecedented ways, they would zealously guard against any extraneous considerations that might adversely affect their ethical/political neutrality. Nonetheless, this should not mean a total avoidance of state and its funding, and the institutions supported by it. Otherwise, such a stance will exclude from the purview of social research many institutions such as prisons, schools, hospitals, courts, police and, military (Punch 1986: 31). In reality, social research is fairly dependent on the state funding. Nonetheless, protecting researchers from sponsor’s pressures and respecting their autonomy to follow intellectual/academic pursuits have been recurrent dimensions of the debate on ethics in social research.

Sure enough, some of the researchers travel the extra mile to churn out such research that would suit the ideological palate of their sponsors. In other words, over identification with sponsors is the real dilemma confronting sponsored research. But then, speaking ‘truth to power’ has been a much venerated research goal. A researcher does not have to merely rest content with providing an adequate definition of social reality. He has to ensure that his research findings are not used to buttress ends that are antithetical to his ethical values as a researcher. Mere candour in research is not enough (see Berremen 1968). The frequent complaint that the uses of research are beyond one’s control does not help us any further. To the extent that social research is not simply a matter of the verifiability of statements and hypothesis, a researcher has to be discreet not only in the choice of his research undertakings but also has to keep an eye to their implications. The least he/she can insist is his/her right to have a say in what he/she does and not get swayed by problems defined by the sources that provide funds to him/her.

Yet, it is a misplaced expectation. Even if a researcher succeeds in not simply accepting research themes from numerous foundations, NGOs, and the market, he finds it difficult to resist the demands of social engineering championed by the state. Since World War II, the state has come to be seen as the embodiment of socially desired and consensually sanctified ends. Researcher’s socialisation within nationalist framework and values coupled with the foreign policy and security goals of a nation-state compound his ethical dilemmas. He can ill afford to directly confront the policy parameters of the political regime under the pretext of disinterested and academic pursuit of knowledge.

In a related way, political commitments and ideological predilections of the researchers also play an important role in setting new research priorities. One need not quarrel over the issue, as politics, understandably, is about competitive ordering of priorities of individuals and group. Politics becomes an ethically despicable issue when commitment replaces knowledge, confrontation replaces analysis and ideology replaces science. That is why, it is ethically imperative to assess the influence of special interest groups in social research. Unfortunately, we have so far been more preoccupied with research-client relationships to debate the multitude of ethical questions these interest/pressure groups such as dalits, backward classes, feminists, queers, minorities raise. We need to ascertain our ethical dilemmas when a university or research institution, we are working at, comes into conflict with the inherent needs of a special interest group to avoid objective scholarly enquiry.

Even otherwise, given the competitive commercialisation of higher education, social research is expected to bring in new sources of finance. There is a possibility that survival instincts of institutions may set in certain ethical recklessness in attracting research funds. Ethical codes may also suffer because in an organisation unclear responsibility at different levels may encourage unethical tampering with findings in response to political pressures or sponsor’s demands. Many universities have gone for setting up research ethics committees to address these issues (see Steneck 1984 for the University of Michigan Task Force on Integrity of Scholarship).

In India, for the first time, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) brought out, in 1980, ‘Policy Statement on Ethical Considerations Involved in Research on Human Subjects’ under the chairmanship of Justice H R Khanna. Later, in 2000, the ICMR’s Central Ethics Committee on Human Research (under the chairmanship of Justice M N Venkatchaliah) published ‘Ethical Guidelines for Biomedical Research on Human Subjects’. Unfortunately, such exercises have been not been extended to the field of social science research with the possible exception of Ethical Guidelines for Social Science Research in Health published by Centre for Enquiry into Health and Applied Themes (CEHAT), Mumbai (National Committee for Ethics in Social Science Research in Health 2000).

One way of tackling ethical issues arising from researcher-sponsorship relationship might lie in making available diverse sources and systems of funding for social research. This may restrain certain types of research outcomes from strengthening Establishment by way of further rationalising its social controls (if the source of funding is the state) or manipulating public opinion (if sources are corporate bodies and the like). One can also think of devising ways and means to work in close association with political outsiders to offset the heavy influence of the government of the day. Whatever path we follow we must remember that social research is as much about ideas as about interests (of subjects, sponsors and researchers). In essence, the researcher-sponsor relationship boils down to the basic question as to whether social research can be treated in a manner that the ultimate responsibility (and the prerequisite autonomy) for the shape and quality of the product rests with the researcher in an academic environment supportive of ethical integrity and propriety of research.

Self-Check Exercise 2:

Question 1. Name some of the initiatives towards the incorporation of ethical guidelines in research in India.

Answer: In India, for the first time, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) brought out, in 1980, ‘Policy Statement on Ethical Considerations Involved in Research on Human Subjects’ under the chairmanship of Justice H R Khanna. Later, in 2000, the ICMR’s Central Ethics Committee on Human Research (under the chairmanship of Justice M N Venkatchaliah) published ‘Ethical Guidelines for Biomedical Research on Human Subjects’.

Question 2. Could you please name one initiative towards the incorporation of ethical guidelines in social science research in India?

Answer: Ethical Guidelines for Social Science Research in Health published by Centre for Enquiry into Health and Applied Themes (CEHAT), Mumbai (National Committee for Ethics in Social Science Research in Health 2000).

6. The Researcher and the Public

Social researchers cannot escape ethical values either in their research choices or in the effects of their research. The act of social research cannot be seen in isolation with the consequences of research. Not only does social research impact on the world, but has also been the pre-eminent source of public justification for the pursuit of knowledge in the realm of social sciences. Indeed, for long, we have believed that social research necessarily contributes to social progress. Justifiably, social research has been nourished and sustained by public support and money. The use of public money implies public support for social research. Seen thus, the public, as a category, is an important stakeholder in social research. Unfortunately, we have often talked of research ethics in the context of methods employed thereby sideling the political issue of the substance and use of social research (see Sjoberg 1967). It is in the latter sense that we should be focusing on the researcher-public relationship. In its essentials, it implies that social research is not only a cognitive undertaking but also a moral vocation (see Shils 1980).

Whereas sponsors are increasingly open about their propensity to exercise control on research process and output, the public remains an amorphous entity. In terms of the scope of our discussion, ethical imperatives necessitate reconciling the divergent interests of experts qua researchers and public qua laypersons. Put differently, ethical concerns attempt at reconciling intellectual, ideological, scientific and human values. An idea of the optimal public good acts as a reminder of the continued relevance and importance of ethical problems confronting the general conduct of the affairs of social research. It is also the pre-eminent basis for the much talked about cost-benefit assessment in social research. In any case, ‘the time has passed when the scientist can maintain that his task is solely the pursuit of pure knowledge without regard for the uses or abuses of that knowledge’ (Gjessing 1968: 402).

It needs no emphasis that ethics, politics and epistemology are always intertwined. It was positivist fallacy that separated fact from value, and descriptive statements from evaluative ones. The growing awareness on the part of researchers of the complicated interrelations among their epistemological assumptions, political commitments and ethical beliefs has lain to rest grand positivist ideals. No conscientious researcher today would claim that he conducts his research with the same objectivity and detachment with which the zoologist dissects the potato bug, an ideal that the famous Chicago sociologist Robert Park used to place before his disciples.

Social research is much more than a systematic collection of facts and information. It involves interpretation. Its interpretive role cannot be understood in apolitical terms. Whether descriptive or prescriptive, its uses range from offering rationale for political action or interaction to constituting  modes of (alternative) political discourses. Given these demonstrable uses of social research, it is imperative that it is placed neither under total state control nor is it offered for hire by anyone. We have to see if the purposes of a study are practicable or compatible with the public good. In fact, most ethical issues arise not in conjunction with the relationship between investigator and sponsor but rather in relationship with the public as subjects or informants are very much part of the public. Essentially, social research remains a matter of social responsibility, howsoever vaguely defined (Berreman 1968). Not only the public must trust the ability of the professional researcher to make a contribution to knowledge, but also the researcher should not take his academic freedom as an absolute right. For the social researcher, it means combining his professional obligations with pressing ordinary obligations such as competence, diligence, truthfulness, non-malfeasance, and fairness. They should avoid subjecting people to their research if data can be obtained through alternative means. Should every researcher go afresh for social survey or census of the basic kind when such data are routinely collected by macro research agencies such as census or NSS or the plethora of other legitimate administrative agencies?

Self-Check Exercise 3:

Question: Can ethics, politics and epistemology be separated?

Answer: No, ethics, politics and epistemology are always intertwined. It was positivist fallacy that separated fact from value, and descriptive statements from evaluative ones.

7. Summary

Appreciably, the importance of ethical issues in social research has increasingly been recognised. In part, this is due to the changing perception of the social researcher. The ideal of social researcher as a ‘detached observer’ has come to be regarded as unrealistic. While codes of conduct can act as useful guidelines in developing ethical practice, there are no definitive answers to ethical questions that a researcher confronts in his research. Howsoever ethical the research design, ultimately, it is the professional integrity of the researcher that counts. The satisfactory resolution of ethically complex and contentious issues relies on an honest awareness of researcher’s own values, assumptions and prejudices. Also, mere awareness of ethical values is not an adequate basis to conduct research. Ideally, such values need to form part of the research practice itself.

It is heartening to note that researchers in various fields of social sciences have turned their attention to the ethical dimensions of their own activities. They are increasingly considering their research decisions in relation to ethical principles and social goals. Today, most professional organisations have their own ethical codes of conduct. In the world of Western and American social sciences, the controversy surrounding the Project Camelot led to the eventual framing of ethical guidelines by most of the major social science associations. In fact, applied anthropology and psychology had formulated their ethical codes as early as the 1940s and 1950s (Barnes 1979: 158-68).

True, ethical codes have their own limitations. At times, they can be vacuous on account of being too general; at other times, they can be overwhelming on account of being too detailed. Certainly though, they serve as advisory statements and facilitate the professional socialisation of new researchers in whatever ethical values that are au courant. Even when full of general platitudes, they act as reminder of researchers’ professed ideals. They reveal these ideals to others including those who may not share these ideals. They send across the clear message that if someone wants to be part of the social research community he/she better be prepared to be judged by the standards of the profession. At all events, a professional code of ethics is beneficial as a guideline that alerts researchers to the ethical dimensions of their work, particularly prior to their entry in the social realm of research (Punch 1986: 37).

Not surprisingly, the advisability of framing ethical code of conduct or constituting ethical review committees by institutions and research foundations has gained wide if not universal acceptance in the realm of social research. The fact remains though that these institutional and professional innovations primarily protect the interest of the profession than the public. Arguably, a visible lack of consensus persists in the social research community as to how the professional associations should guide the conduct of research. Even otherwise, ethics in social research is an ever-evolving subject. New research techniques often necessitate revisiting old concerns apart from accommodating new ones. Internet research is a case in point. What is more important, however, is to keep ethical matters under debate and discussion. Bringing a research publication in the public sphere for scrutiny and check is argued to be standard method of guarding objectivity and neutrality in social science research. Not only such discussions provide increasingly instructive principles for clarifying well-established ethical dimensions of social research but also continually orient new generation of researchers to emergent ethical issues. At a time when much of social research is full of sophistry, propaganda and hyperbole, our firm ethical anchoring will help increase the power and influence of social research.

8. References

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• Barnes, J.A. Who Should Know What? Social Science, Privacy and Ethics. Harmondsworth:
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• Humphreys, Laud. Tearoom Trade: Impersonal Trade in Public Places. Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company, 1970.
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• Madan, T.N. “On Living Intimately with Strangers”. In Encounter and Experience: Personal Accounts of Fieldwork edited by Andre Beteille and T N Madan. New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, 1975. p. 131-56.
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• Milgram, Stanley. “Some Conditions of Obedience and Disobedience to Authority”. Human Relations 18, no.1 (1965): 57-76.
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