ETHICAL DECISIONS IN SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH (EXAMPLES) - SCIENCE - 2025

The ethical decisions of scientific research are those that confront a professional in his area to recognize whether his actions in front of any scenario can be considered correct or not within his own professional spectrum.

As in other trades and professions, ethics is present in every decision range. Every professional activity handles a code of ethics that presents the morally correct decisions to be made in different situations.

In general, it is a question of measuring whether what is being carried out violates human morality and dignity, as well as the law.

Scientific research, being a branch of continuous development and search for innovation, can sometimes find itself facing action scenarios whose decisions could be subjected to moral and even legal judgments.

It is for this and many other reasons that the field of scientific research is very delicate. Every decision to be made for the sake of progress must be carefully studied and addressed.

Currently, even the existence of recognized and applied methods in the world may be insufficient when a researcher is achieved with new phenomena and is eager to break them down.

Sometimes individual ambition can play a trick on the investigation as a whole.

However, all the elements around an investigation process seek to protect themselves from any eventuality that could put their ethics and reliability at risk.

Examples of ethical decisions

Some examples of decisions with an ethical component that normally have to be made in research are:

-Investigate or not with animals.

-Test or not a certain experimental drug with people.

-Use as a control group a group of people who will not receive the benefits of a certain drug / therapy.

-Manipulate or not human embryos.

-Cloning or not of animals.

-Cloning or not of body parts.

-Manipulate or not social phenomena to investigate their consequences.

Decisions and ethical conduct of the researcher

When addressing ethical conduct in all professional activities, including scientific research, an ideal profile is established. This profile describes the qualities that the researcher should have.

The first of these qualities is the love of truth, or the continuous search for everything that can really be verifiable within the investigation.

The honesty of the researcher with himself, the rest of the team and the potential public consumer of the research results is another aspect of great ethical importance.

In the case of research, honesty is reflected in the authentic representation of results in relation to those obtained during the scientific research process, without these being misrepresented for the benefit of outside interests.

Because scientific research is carried out with the greater purpose of facilitating human life and providing a greater amount of benefits to society, the researcher must consider this search as a badge for his work.

It must contribute to development without allowing science to be used as an instrument of political or commercial selfishness, to name just a few bad uses of science.

Ethical and administrative leadership

In scientific research there are many more levels than just the research group and the object to be investigated.

There is also an administrative and legal representation, in charge of weighing all the decisions to be made, how they will be taken and what their possible consequences may be when approaching a new research project.

By approaching these levels, the ethical dimensions around a research project are exposed, as well as the darkest and most morally questionable points are clarified.

The decisions made by each of the representatives or managers who will carry out the investigation are evaluated.

Before each new project, the ethical principles with which the company will be approached are formulated, adapted to the pre-existing ethical codes in scientific practice.

In this way, greater clarity is provided and the professionals involved can feel more secure about the consequences and results of their actions and decisions.

This part of the ethical decision process also serves to glimpse the leadership within each new investigative approach, and sensitize it to the possible situations of ethical and moral doubts that the person leading the investigation may face.

Ethical advice for scientific research

Among the types of ethical advice that can be received around scientific research, environmental advice stands out.

This is representative of the domains of the environment and its cause and effect relationship with the research to be carried out, adapting its logistics to minimize its environmental impact.

Organizational counseling is also very important, which addresses the qualities, criteria and judgments of the administrative area around a research project.

This field of advice has a much greater impact on decision-making for the application of new technologies or investment of resources.

Decisive processes in scientific research

Decision-making before, during and after the development of a scientific investigation is not something that is taken lightly, and it is not limited only to the participants or professionals closest to the investigative actions.

As already mentioned, there is an administrative and organizational wing that influences the continuous ethical development of any scientific project.

On this, criteria have been developed around decision-making, such as decision factors, whose questions must be answered before taking any measure of ethical implications in an investigation.

These criteria are the nature of the decision or decree to be taken, the context in which it is considered as an option or the way forward and the effectiveness that this measure may have in the development of the investigation.

Apart from the administrative criteria around the mere conception and decision-making, in the field of scientific research there is also an organizational and logistical level that revolves around what is called strategic decision-making.

These act as the development and breakdown of the reflections around all the options that can be handled and that, therefore, can affect in one way or another the research that is carried out.

The objectives, the search for options, the alternatives, the choice and the monitoring of the decisions made are some of the strategic criteria that are considered in the ethical development of scientific research.

References

1. Arellano, JS, Hall, RT, & Arriaga, JH (2014). Ethics of scientific research. Querétaro: Autonomous University of Querétaro.
2. Barden, LM, Frase, PA, & Kovac, J. (1997). Teaching scientific ethics: A case studies approach. The American Biology Teacher, 12-14.
3. Ojeda de López, J., Quintero, J., & Machado, I. (2007). Ethics in research. Telos, 345-357.
4. Rapoport, A. (1957). Scientific approach to ethics. Science, 796-799.