Risk-Aversion or Ethical Responsibility?

Towards a New Research Ethics Paradigm

Authors

  • Stephen Jacobs University of Wolverhampton
  • Alan Apperley University of Wolverhampton

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/firn.35665

Keywords:

audit culture, consequentialism, ethical codes, ethnographic research, Kantianism, virtue ethics

Abstract

Ethics seems to be of increasing concern for researchers in Higher Education Institutes and funding bodies demand ever more transparent and robust ethics procedures. While we agree that an ethical approach to fieldwork in religion is critical, we take issue with the approach that ethics committees and reviews adopt in assessing the ethicality of proposed research projects. We identify that the approach to research ethics is informed by consequentialism – the consequences of actions, and Kantianism – the idea of duty. These two ethical paradigms are amenable to the prevailing audit culture of HE. We argue that these ethical paradigms, while might be apposite for bio-medical research, are not appropriate for fieldwork in religion. However, because ethics should be a crucial consideration for all research, it is necessary to identify a different approach to ethical issues arising in ethnographic research. We suggest that a virtue ethics approach – concerned with character – is much more consistent with the situated, relational and ongoing nature of ethnographic research.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biographies

  • Stephen Jacobs, University of Wolverhampton

    Stephen Jacobs is Senior Lecturer in Media, Religion and Culture. He is currently the Chair of the Faculty of Arts Ethics Committee at the University of Wolverhampton. He has recently published The Art of Living Foundation: Spirituality and Wellbeing in the Global Context (Ashgate 2015). Although his main interests is focused on the intersection between religion and popular culture, his current research is an ethnographic study of the environmental movement.

  • Alan Apperley, University of Wolverhampton

    Alan Apperley is a Senior Lecturer in Media, Communication and Cultural Studies at the University of Wolverhampton. He has published variously on the history of political thought (Hobbes; Rousseau) and aspects of contemporary political theory including the concepts of personal autonomy, political liberalism and liberal democracy. His current research interests include Public Service Broadcasting and its role in a democratic society, the idea of ‘sharing’ in social media, and the generation of public value in the context of both broadcasting and Higher Education. His first novel – Indeterminate Creatures – was published by Tindal Street Press in 2010.

References

Armbruster, Heidi and Anna Lærke 2008 Taking Sides: Ethics, Politics and Fieldwork in Anthropology. New York: Berghahn Books.

Besley, A.C., and Michael A. Peters 2006 Neoliberalism, Performance and the Assessment of Research Quality. South African Journal of Higher Education 20(6): 814–32.

De Laine, Marlene 2000 Fieldwork, Participation and Practice: Ethics and Dilemmas in Qualitative Research. London: Sage.

Dyer, Sarah, and David Demeritt 2008 Un-Ethical Review? Why it is Wrong to Apply the Medical Model of Research Governance to Human Geography. Progress in Human Geography 33(1): 46–64. https://doi.org/10.1177/0309132508090475

ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council) 2017 Research Ethics: Our Core Principles. Online: http://www.esrc.ac.uk/funding/guidance-for-applicants/research-ethics/our-core-principles (accessed June 20, 2017).

Ess, Charles 2009 Digital Media Ethics. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Hursthouse, Rosalind 2002 On Virtue Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Hursthouse, Rosalind, and Glen Pettigrove 2016 Virtue Ethics. In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward N.
Zalta. Online: https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/ethics-virtue/ (accessed June 20, 2017).

Israel, Mark 2015 Research Ethics and Integrity for Social Scientists: Beyond Regulatory Compliance. London: Sage. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781473910096

Israel, Mark, and Iain Hay 2006 Research Ethics for Social Scientists. London: Sage. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781849209779

MacIntyre, Alasdair 2007 After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, 3rd edn. London: Duckworth.

Scheper-Hughes, Nancy 2000 Ire in Ireland. Ethnography 1(1): 117–40. https://doi.org/10.1177/14661380022230660

Taylor, Charles 1989 Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Weber, Max 1978 Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology. Volume 1. London: University of California Press.

UKRIO (UK Research Integrity Office) 2017 Principles. Online: http://ukrio.org/publications/code-of-practice-for-research/2-0-principles (accessed June 20, 2017).

University of Wolverhampton 2017 Ethics Guidance: What is Ethics. Online: https://www.wlv.ac.uk/research/about-our-research/policies-and-ethics/ethics-guidance/ (accessed February 3, 2018).

Published

2018-03-13

How to Cite

Jacobs, S., & Apperley, A. (2018). Risk-Aversion or Ethical Responsibility? Towards a New Research Ethics Paradigm. Fieldwork in Religion, 12(2), 148-162. https://doi.org/10.1558/firn.35665