A2. MANDATORY Reflective Activity - Thinking through ethics

This is an activity to explore your own ethical decision-making patterns and approaches. 

Now imagine a situation where you are writing a journal article with two other people from your research group. The article is based mainly on work you have done, and you are the planned first author. You are almost done with the article, when your boss comes to you and asks you to include a professor from a US institution as the second author in the paper. This professor has no specific expertise in the article you have written but he has a very impressive publication record in the field you are working in.

At this point your boss also shares with you that there is a shared funding application with this US institution and that there are great post doc opportunities there. Your boss knows you have expressed an interest to work with this institution and he gives you the nod saying this would put you in a great position for getting in there.

Now I would like you to stop and think. Not yet what you would do personally, but the different ways this situation could be handled. As an exercise, I ask you to think of different ways to complete these sentences: you should agree to the request because... AND you should reject the request because... you are not asked to say what should be done, but to think different ways this situation could be approached. Write your options down before clicking onto the next slide. 

1.Write a short list of your own reasons supporting each decision and include it in your submitted answer. 

Now here is a list of answers others have given. 

First for why you should AGREE.... 

• There is something in it for me
• There is something in it for the group 
• Where is the harm? 
• Benefits to your colleagues 
• It happens all the time 

and then why you should NOT AGREE...

• Not fair on your colleagues
• Impact on the research community
• It is wrong
• He has not contributed 
• Something I don’t want to be associated with 

Note, there are equal amount of ways to support either conclusion. Any of them appeal to you? Make you think one of conclusions is the right one?  The one that would persuade you? 

Now think how you would consider your choice in light of the above-mentioned ethical theories and research ethical principles

• Are some of the reasons supporting either conclusion clearly supported by some ethical theory – consequentialist, deontological, or virtue approach? 
• What are the relevant reasons from the consequentialist viewpoint? How about from the deontological or virtue ethical? 
• What are the reasons you consider to be the strongest in this case?
• What research ethical principles you consider to be the most relevant in your choice how to act in this situation?
• Why you hold them the most important?