Rethinking the Meaning of Ethics in RCR Education

Training in the responsible conduct of research (RCR) is meant to ensure that federally funded scientists have the knowledge, skills, and resources necessary to conduct science in line with agreed upon scientific norms and ethical principles. At its institutional best, RCR education begins early, with reinforcement in subsequent stages of career development. Studies suggest, however, that scientists perceive the push to think about ethical matters negatively, narrowly equating ethics with burdensome oversight and regulation, or with controversies in a few highly charged areas. For their part, RCR instructors contribute to this narrow conception of ethics education by placing disproportionate emphasis on the misconduct of the few and its career-destroying consequences. The result is an ethics that is both individualistic and uncritical, an ethics incapable of explaining the threat to scientific integrity posed by a rigidly hierarchical distribution of power, severe competition for funding, a “winner takes all” credit system, and many other features of ordinary science. What is needed is a broader, richer conception of ethics, one that focuses not only on individual instances of misconduct, but also on the growing gap between the normative ideals of science and its institutional reward systems.