What are ethical issues
Problem or situation that requires a person or organization to choose between alternatives that must be evaluated as right (ethical) or wrong (unethical). Ethical issue' in a was not a moral issue, but an ethical issue and required a lot of thought and planning to figure out a found this should always make sure you break down any ethical issue and be on the right side of the found this considering this problem, lawyers may do well to ignore the letter of the law and realize that it is, at its heart, an ethical found this also might like... Are the ethical issues that need to be considered, and how do they play out in community interventions? Right of a person to know what happens to information he reveals in the course of a community intervention falls under the heading of ethics. In this section, we'll discuss what some of those expectations are, and your and your organization's or initiative's moral and legal obligations to those you do we mean by ethics? Is a code of thinking and behavior governed by a combination of personal, moral, legal, and social standards of what is right. As john mcknight points out in the careless society: community and its counterfeits, community interventions may in fact sometimes harm participants by substituting for what they really need -- to be part of a real community, to be regarded in terms of their capacities rather than their deficiencies, to have access to a steady source of income. Are the situations in which the proposed service may be applied with many other services and what interactive negative effects will result? People as ends, not means: consider and treat everyone as a unique individual who matters, not as a number in a political or social or clinical t participants' ability to play a role in determining what they need. Don't assume that professional staff or program planners necessarily know what's best for a community or t everyone's human, civil, and legal rights. This encompasses such issues as non-discrimination and cultural what is best for everyone under the circumstances. How do you determine what is best for anyone in a particular situation, let alone the best outcome for everyone? It's important to distinguish between doing what you can and getting in over your head to the point where what you're doing becomes truly unethical and ly strive to improve or correct, to the extent possible, the situations of participants in your program and the community. If there are issues affecting the community that have nothing to do directly with the one you're concerned with, do you nonetheless have an obligation to become involved? What if you don't really understand the whole situation, and your involvement may do as much harm as good -- do you still have an ethical obligation to support or become active on the right side? But you need to be aware of them, and to make decisions about how you're going to address them if you're concerned about the ethics of your intervention and your is ethical behavior important in community interventions? Addition to its simply being the right thing to do, always acting ethically brings some particular advantages with it. Considering ethical principles in all aspects of a community intervention will lead you to finding the most effective and community-centered methods, and will bring dividends in participation, community support and funding ng in the community.
What ethical issues are related to informed consent
An organization that has a reputation for ethical action is far more likely to be respected by both participants and the community as a whole than one that has been known to be unethical in the past. An organization that's recognized as ethical is also apt to be seen as competent, and to be trusted to treat people with respect and to do what it says it will do. You have a moral obligation to yourself, the individuals you work with, and the community to be ethical in all you do, and to expect the same from others. If you fulfill that obligation, and everyone knows it, your voice will have greater impact when you speak out for what you believe is right, or against what you believe is wrong, and others will follow sional and legal issues. The american medical association, the american bar association, the american psychological association, the national association of social workers -- these and many other professional associations have detailed ethical standards their members are expected to adhere to. In most situations, ethical and legal behavior go hand in is subject to a code of ethics in community interventions? There are, however, a number of formal ethical codes -- usually set down by professional organizations, but sometimes by law -- that apply to people in particular professional or other are some examples of people expected to adhere to a formal code of ethics:Medical professionals (i. We'll look at the implications of mandated reporter status later in this are the ethical issues that need to be considered, and how do they play out in community interventions? Not all of the areas discussed below are covered by a specific legal or ethical code for every profession or community service, but are nonetheless related to ethical behavior for just about any program or organization. All should at least be considered as you define ethics for yourself and your ly the most familiar of ethical issues -- perhaps because it's the one most often violated -- is the expectation that communications and information from participants in the course of a community intervention or program (including conversations, written or taped records, notes, test results, etc. If the program staff member is a mandated reporter for child abuse and neglect, if the participant presents a threat to himself or others, or if the staff member is subpoenaed in a legal case, both the law and ethical codes generally require that the staff person put her responsibilities to the law or to the safety of others above her promise of program staff may consider their relationship with participants to be ethically more important than legal considerations. In that case, especially if threatened with withdrawal of funds, the program has to decide whether the money is more important than participants' anonymity, or what level of anonymity is sufficient. Often, in those cases, participation implies an agreement to the sharing of records and information, and may even be a matter of public all circumstances, ethical treatment of participants demands that they be informed about the program's confidentiality policies. In most cases, they then have the choice of not participating if they are unhappy with those policies; in the case of court-mandated participation, at least they'll know what to expect. All of which brings us to the next two issues, which may intertwine with confidentiality and each other: consent and are really three faces of consent: program participants giving program staff consent to share their records or information with others for purposes of service provision; participants giving informed consent to submit to particular medical or other services, treatment, research, or program conditions; and community members consenting to the location or operation of an intervention in their t to sharing of information. In any of these instances, ethical practice demands that people be fully informed -- and can ask and have answered any questions -- about what they are about to take part in. Patients have a right to be told exactly what their diagnosis is, what treatment is being recommended and why, what its risks and advantages are, possible outcomes, etc. In the case of most other services or treatment, participants' rights are similar, unless their participation is mandated by the court or in some other the case of research, people have a right to know what the research is about, who will see and tabulate the results, what the results will be used for and how, what will happen to their personal records, how their anonymity will be protected, etc.
Is it ethically necessary to gain the consent of a neighborhood to place a halfway house or homeless shelter there, for instance? Practice, it almost always makes sense to let people know what you plan to do, and to negotiate with them if they have concerns about it. But what if that neighborhood is unalterably opposed to a homeless shelter being located in the area, and you've already bought the property? Legally, you may have every right to put any facility you want to there, but what is your ethical obligation (assuming you can't persuade the neighbors to change their minds)? Much of what is discussed above and below has been the subject of legal wrangling or legislation (as in the case of the buckley amendment). While the question of the right to privacy, constitutional or otherwise, is much too broad to go into here in any detail, it is always lurking behind any decision about releasing consent, disclosure in this context has more than one sure to participants of the conditions of the program they're in -- program policies of confidentiality and when it might be breached, what kinds of services are available and what kinds are not, any time limits on the program, whether it will cost anything, etc. Some organizations or individuals put these disclosures in writing, and make sure that every participant has a copy and that he understands what's written on it. It is ethically important both that participants know exactly what they're getting into, and that they be treated as adults who can decide what makes sense for programs have a grievance procedure for participants who feel they have been unfairly denied services, or that they have been in some way harmed in the course of their contact with a community program. Depending upon the controlling laws, the public funder usually specifies what constitutes conflict of interest, so that the program can report accurately and police itself offering services of any kind, an organization is essentially making a contract with participants to do the job it says it will do. But whatever the success rate, participants and the community have a right to expect that the program knows what it's doing and will make its best faith effort to provide effective services. That means that community services need to be offered by folks who are competent at what they ence means more than simply having the appropriate training and experience. If service appears to be ineffective or harmful, it is the ethical responsibility of the program to seek out or develop and try more effective methods. Of interest are virtually always unethical, to the point where the mere appearance of a conflict needs to be avoided. Even if decisions or actions are not actually influenced by personal interest, people in conflict of interest situations in their public or professional lives should do everything possible to resolve you find yourself in such a situation, the ethical remedy is two-pronged:Point it out to whoever needs to know -- your employer, a funder, the community, the participant you're working with -- and discuss possible ate the conflict situation. The issues that exist between the two may reduce both the objectivity of the therapist and the effectiveness of the therapy. A third possibility (one which can and should be pursued no matter what else happens) is to educate funders and policy makers to the unintended consequences of tying funding to participant numbers and particular outcomes. The more different funding sources you can tap, the less likely you are to find yourself in this bind, and that may in fact be the best solution: spread your funding out as much as possible, so that losing or refusing one funder doesn't put you in the situation of having to choose between ethical behavior and y unethical is behavior far beyond the bounds of the normally accepted ethical standards of society. In some cases, grossly unethical behavior may stem from taking advantage of a conflict of interest situation.
Community programs need to be clear about their own ethical standards, and to hold individuals to them and to any other standards their professions demand. In most cases, staff members guilty of grossly unethical behavior should be dismissed as quickly as possible, and prosecuted where that is appropriate. Some of the more familiar types of grossly unethical behavior include:Having sexual relationships -- even consensual sexual relationships -- with people with whom you have a professional relationship in which you hold the power. Funders: billing for non-existent services, or inventing problems in order to deliver unnecessary g necessary medical services to those uninsured and unable to minating in service delivery by race, gender, ethnicity, mination may not be unethical if an intervention is established to serve a particular group for a particular purpose. Selling drugs or robbing a l ethical l behavior for a community intervention is more than simply following particular professional codes and keeping your nose clean. It means actively striving to do what is right for participants and for the community, and treating everyone -- participants, staff members, funders, the community at large -- in an ethical way. By doing what you do in the community, you take on a number of responsibilities:Responsibility to funders. You are responsible for being fiscally accountable, for using funds properly, and for trying to do what you promised to do when you took the a funder is asking for something you're not willing to provide or promise, either don't take (or apply for) the money, or try to negotiate a compromise. You also owe him a clear explanation of the risks of the job and of how much and what kind of support he can expect from the sibility to participants. Most ethical decisions are far from cut and issue of respect can also be confusing. Remaining respectful may defuse the situation, but any program needs clear guidelines about what kind of behavior is unacceptable and how such behavior will be handled. You are responsible for trying to understand and meet the needs of the community; for being responsive to community attitudes and opinions (without compromising your own mission or philosophy); and for trying, through your intervention, to improve the quality of life in some way for both program participants and the community as a participatory nature of community interventions that these obligations imply can also raise ethical questions. It usually makes both ethical and practical sense to involve the target population and/or the community at large in planning a community program. There are many good reasons for this involvement -- fostering community ownership of the program, having the input of people with a sense of community history, respecting people enough to pay attention to what they say they need, etc. What if you think the community's ideas are completely wrongheaded, or they want more control over the program than you'd feel comfortable with? It's important to consider the questions, but to understand that taking what you see as the ethical path can sometimes land you in a briar patch. It helps to have clear sense of what you believe is right, and to also consider carefully what will actually benefit the situation and the people the case of community participants giving wrongheaded advice, for instance, is the principle of respecting the community's wishes more or less important than that of creating the most effective way to meet community needs? A program that itself behaves unethically or allows its staff to do so is both ignoring its mission and risking its credibility and effectiveness in the e ethical issues are not always cut and dried, community programs should work out their own ethical guidelines and policies before questions actually arise.
If you can agree on standards for primary ethical issues -- confidentiality, consent, disclosure, competence, conflict of interest, grossly unethical behavior, and the overall ethical stance and actions of the program -- and create policies which will help you uphold those standards, you're on your way to community respect and outstanding service an psychological association. A discussion of the concept of self in law, and how that affects issues of ethics and , s. There was a gradually developing consensus about the key ethical principles underlie the research endeavor. While it's not entirely clear, at present, what the new consensus will be,It is almost certain that it will not fall at either extreme: protecting against mentation at all costs vs. Allowing anyone who is willing to be are a number of key phrases that describe the system of ethical protections contemporary social and medical research establishment have created to try to the rights of their research participants. Ethical standards also require that researchers not put participants in ion where they might be at risk of harm as a result of ipation. Increasingly, researchers have had to deal with the ethical issue of 's right to service. But when that treatment or program may cial effects, persons assigned to the no-treatment control may feel their rights access to services are being when clear ethical standards and principles exist, there will be times when to do accurate research runs up against the rights of potential participants. Furthermore, there be a procedure that assures that researchers will consider all relevant ethical formulating research plans. To address such needs most institutions and formulated an institutional review board (irb), a panel of persons s grant proposals with respect to ethical implications and decides onal actions need to be taken to assure the safety and rights of participants. This is the most common way of defining "ethics": norms for conduct that distinguish between acceptable and unacceptable people learn ethical norms at home, at school, in church, or in other social settings. Ethical norms are so ubiquitous that one might be tempted to regard them as simple commonsense. On the other hand, if morality were nothing more than commonsense, then why are there so many ethical disputes and issues in our society? Plausible explanation of these disagreements is that all people recognize some common ethical norms but interpret, apply, and balance them in different ways in light of their own values and life experiences. For example, two people could agree that murder is wrong but disagree about the morality of abortion because they have different understandings of what it means to be a human societies also have legal rules that govern behavior, but ethical norms tend to be broader and more informal than laws. Although most societies use laws to enforce widely accepted moral standards and ethical and legal rules use similar concepts, ethics and law are not the same. We can also use ethical concepts and principles to criticize, evaluate, propose, or interpret laws. Peaceful civil disobedience is an ethical way of protesting laws or expressing political r way of defining 'ethics' focuses on the disciplines that study standards of conduct, such as philosophy, theology, law, psychology, or sociology.
One may also define ethics as a method, procedure, or perspective for deciding how to act and for analyzing complex problems and issues. For instance, in considering a complex issue like global warming, one may take an economic, ecological, political, or ethical perspective on the problem. While an economist might examine the cost and benefits of various policies related to global warming, an environmental ethicist could examine the ethical values and principles at different disciplines, institutions, and professions have standards for behavior that suit their particular aims and goals. Ethical norms also serve the aims or goals of research and apply to people who conduct scientific research or other scholarly or creative activities. See glossary of commonly used terms in research are several reasons why it is important to adhere to ethical norms in research. For example, prohibitions against fabricating, falsifying, or misrepresenting research data promote the truth and minimize , since research often involves a great deal of cooperation and coordination among many different people in different disciplines and institutions, ethical standards promote the values that are essential to collaborative work, such as trust, accountability, mutual respect, and fairness. For example, many ethical norms in research, such as guidelines for authorship, copyright and patenting policies, data sharing policies, and confidentiality rules in peer review, are designed to protect intellectual property interests while encouraging collaboration. Most researchers want to receive credit for their contributions and do not want to have their ideas stolen or disclosed , many of the ethical norms help to ensure that researchers can be held accountable to the public. For instance, federal policies on research misconduct, conflicts of interest, the human subjects protections, and animal care and use are necessary in order to make sure that researchers who are funded by public money can be held accountable to the , ethical norms in research also help to build public support for research. Ethical lapses in research can significantly harm human and animal subjects, students, and the public. Other influential research ethics policies include singapore statement on research integrity, the american chemical society, the chemist professional’s code of conduct, code of ethics (american society for clinical laboratory science) american psychological association, ethical principles of psychologists and code of conduct, statements on ethics and professional responsibility (american anthropological association), statement on professional ethics (american association of university professors), the nuremberg code and the world medical association's declaration of following is a rough and general summary of some ethical principals that various codes address*:Strive for honesty in all scientific communications. It is therefore important for researchers to learn how to interpret, assess, and apply various research rules and how to make decisions and to act ethically in various situations. He therefore decides to extrapolate from the 45 completed results to produce the 5 additional different research ethics policies would hold that tom has acted unethically by fabricating data. Failing to publish a correction would be unethical because it would violate norms relating to honesty and objectivity in are many other activities that the government does not define as "misconduct" but which are still regarded by most researchers as unethical. These are sometimes referred to as "other deviations" from acceptable research practices and include:Publishing the same paper in two different journals without telling the ting the same paper to different journals without telling the informing a collaborator of your intent to file a patent in order to make sure that you are the sole ing a colleague as an author on a paper in return for a favor even though the colleague did not make a serious contribution to the sing with your colleagues confidential data from a paper that you are reviewing for a data, ideas, or methods you learn about while reviewing a grant or a papers without ng outliers from a data set without discussing your reasons in an inappropriate statistical technique in order to enhance the significance of your ing the peer review process and announcing your results through a press conference without giving peers adequate information to review your ting a review of the literature that fails to acknowledge the contributions of other people in the field or relevant prior hing the truth on a grant application in order to convince reviewers that your project will make a significant contribution to the hing the truth on a job application or curriculum the same research project to two graduate students in order to see who can do it the rking, neglecting, or exploiting graduate or post-doctoral g to keep good research g to maintain research data for a reasonable period of derogatory comments and personal attacks in your review of author's ing a student a better grade for sexual a racist epithet in the significant deviations from the research protocol approved by your institution's animal care and use committee or institutional review board for human subjects research without telling the committee or the reporting an adverse event in a human research g animals in ng students and staff to biological risks in violation of your institution's biosafety ging someone's ng supplies, books, or g an experiment so you know how it will turn unauthorized copies of data, papers, or computer over $10,000 in stock in a company that sponsors your research and not disclosing this financial rately overestimating the clinical significance of a new drug in order to obtain economic actions would be regarded as unethical by most scientists and some might even be illegal in some cases. However, given the huge list of potential offenses that might fall into the category "other serious deviations," and the practical problems with defining and policing these other deviations, it is understandable why government officials have chosen to limit their y, situations frequently arise in research in which different people disagree about the proper course of action and there is no broad consensus about what should be done. In these situations, there may be good arguments on both sides of the issue and different ethical principles may conflict. On the one hand, the ethical norm of openness obliges her to share data with the other research team.
Wexford, can take to deal with ethical dilemmas in research:What is the problem or issue? Do ethical codes or policies as well as legal rules apply to these different options? Broader ethical rules, such as openness and respect for credit and intellectual property, may also apply to this case. Laws relating to intellectual property may be there any people who can offer ethical advice? Wexford might want to talk to her supervisor and research team before making a considering these questions, a person facing an ethical dilemma may decide to ask more questions, gather more information, explore different options, or consider other ethical rules. Ideally, a person who makes a decision in an ethical dilemma should be able to justify his or her decision to himself or herself, as well as colleagues, administrators, and other people who might be affected by the decision. Considering all of these questions, one still might find it difficult to decide what to do. Endorsing these methods in this context need not imply that ethical decisions are irrational, however. The main point is that human reasoning plays a pivotal role in ethical decision-making but there are limits to its ability to solve all ethical dilemmas in a finite amount of ing ethical conduct in academic institutions in the us require undergraduate, graduate, or postgraduate students to have some education in the responsible conduct of research (rcr). You may believe that you are highly ethical and know the difference between right and wrong. Indeed, you also may believe that most of your colleagues are highly ethical and that there is no ethics problem in research.. See shamoo and resnik (2015), cited y, it would be useful to have more data on this topic, but so far there is no evidence that science has become ethically corrupt, despite some highly publicized scandals. Education in research ethics is can help people get a better understanding of ethical standards, policies, and issues and improve ethical judgment and decision making. Many of the deviations that occur in research may occur because researchers simply do not know or have never thought seriously about some of the ethical norms of research. For example, some unethical authorship practices probably reflect traditions and practices that have not been questioned seriously until recently. If the director of a lab is named as an author on every paper that comes from his lab, even if he does not make a significant contribution, what could be wrong with that? A researcher may think that a "normal" or "traditional" financial relationship, such as accepting stock or a consulting fee from a drug company that sponsors her research, raises no serious ethical issues. Or perhaps a university administrator sees no ethical problem in taking a large gift with strings attached from a pharmaceutical company.
Maybe a physician thinks that it is perfectly appropriate to receive a $300 finder’s fee for referring patients into a clinical "deviations" from ethical conduct occur in research as a result of ignorance or a failure to reflect critically on problematic traditions, then a course in research ethics may help reduce the rate of serious deviations by improving the researcher's understanding of ethics and by sensitizing him or her to the y, education in research ethics should be able to help researchers grapple with the ethical dilemmas they are likely to encounter by introducing them to important concepts, tools, principles, and methods that can be useful in resolving these dilemmas. Scientists must deal with a number of different controversial topics, such as human embryonic stem cell research, cloning, genetic engineering, and research involving animal or human subjects, which require ethical reflection and b.