Abstract
Different methods have been developed to address ethical issues during research. Most of these methods were developed at universities. In this article ethical parallel research within a Research and Technology Organization is described. Within a European project about perceived security, CPSI, the ethical issues were identified by ethicists cooperating in the project. The project CPSI was aimed at developing a research method that can be used by (local) government to monitor or assess perceived and actual security. Together with the researchers a way was sought to address the ethical issues. Several issues could be addressed by choices with regard to the design of the validation study, in this case a survey. The ethical and legal reasons that were relevant for choices in the design of the validation study were made an integral part of these decisions. Some issues were already identified during the writing of the proposal others were only identified during the research. Participating in the research gave the ethicists access to all relevant information. It made it possible to address the ethical issues when they became relevant. Ethical reasons were part of some of the discussions on research method. It proved possible to address most ethical issues satisfactorily during the research project.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
We are aware that there is a lively debate whether moral or ethical expertise can exist and what this expertise should entail (see for example Singer 1972; Cholbi 2007; Varelius 2008). We are not going into this debate but assume that people who have experience in identifying ethical issues and have some formal education in ethics could act as ethicists in the way presented here. Note that we assisted the researchers in making choices; we did not make the choices for them.
If the fear that people feel is dismissed by policymakers as irrational because the crime data do not give rise to any concern then there is a similarity with regard to issues about perceived safety. In debates about technological risks sometimes accusations are made that “the public” or laymen are not rational because they refuse nuclear plants because of the risks but accept other technologies or behavior that is more risky like driving a car. These statements disregard that people might have other valid reasons to reject certain technologies. For more information about technological risks and judgment of acceptability, see (Asveld and en Roeser 2008). For perceived security it is important to realize that there might be biases in the reported data.
More information on the project can be found in the reports, see the project website http://www.cpsi-fp7.eu.
One of the partners is going to host the datawarehouse and users will not be able to add extra categories or link other databases to the datawarehouse.
By good research we mean in this case that the conclusions of the research are valid and justified and that the research was performed taking ethical values into account. Research leading to valid results while respecting values such as privacy is regarded to be better research.
References
Asveld, L., & en Roeser, S. (2008). The ethics of technological risks. London: Earthscan Publishers.
Bakker, F., De Graaf, H., De Haas, S., Kedde, H., Kruijer, H., & Wijsen, C. (2009). Sexuele gezondheid in Nederland, Rutgers Nisso groep, Nederland, http://www.rutgersnissogroep.nl.
Cholbi, M. (2007). Moral expertise and the credential problem. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 10, 323–334.
Custers, B. H. M. (2004). The power of knowledge; ethical, legal, and technological aspects of data mining and group profiling in epidemiology. Tilburg: Wolf Legal Publishers.
European Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC. (1995).
Krumpal, I., Rauhut, H., Böhr, D., Naumann, E. (2008). How likely is “likely”? Subjective perception and communication of victimization probabilities. In Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Social Science Methodology, Naples (pp. 1–19), Sept 1–5.
Nissenbaum, H. (2004). Privacy as contextual integrity. Washington Law Review, 79, 119–157.
Noelle-Neumann, E. (1993). The spiral of silence—public opinion, our social skin. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Singer, P. (1972). Moral experts. Analysis, 32, 115–117.
Snyder, M. (1987). Public appearances/private realities: The psychology of self-monitoring. New York: W.H. Freeman and Co.
Van der Burg, S. (2008). Imagining the future of photoacoustic mammography. Science and Engineering Ethics, 15, 97–110.
Van Gorp, A. (2009). Ethics in and during technological research; an addition to ICT ethics and science ethics. In M. Duewel & P. Sollie (Eds.), Evaluating new technologies. Dordrecht: Springer.
Van Tongeren, P. (2008). Schaamte. Ethische perspectieven, 18(3), 437–450.
Varelius, J. (2008). Ethics consultation and autonomy. Science and Engineering Ethics, 14, 65–76.
Vedder, A. (2004). KDD, privacy individuality and fairness. In R. Spinello & H. Tavani (Eds.), Readings in cyberethics (2nd ed., pp. 462–470). Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett Publishers.
Vedder, A., & Custers, B. (2009). Whose responsibility is it anyway? Dealing with the consequences of new technologies. In M. Duewel & P. Sollie (Eds.), Evaluating new technologies. Dordrecht: Springer.
Wittebrood, K. (2006). Slachtoffers van criminaliteit; feiten en achtergronden. Den Haag: Sociaal en Cultureel Planbureau.
Zwart, S., Van de Poel, I., Van Mil, H., & Brumsen, M. (2006). A network approach for distinguishing ethical issues in research and development. Science and Engineering Ethics, 12, 663–684.
Acknowledgments
The work described in this article was done within the project Changing Perceptions of Security and Interventions (CPSI) grant agreement number 217881. This project was funded by the European Commission within the seventh Framework Program theme 10 Security. We would like to thank all partners for their cooperation.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
van Gorp, A., van der Molen, S. Parallel, Embedded or Just Part of the Team: Ethicists Cooperating Within a European Security Research Project. Sci Eng Ethics 17, 31–43 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-009-9187-5
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-009-9187-5