Ethics in Progress, 2023, Volume 14, Issue 2
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Item Ethical Considerations in Research about Organizations: Compendium of Strategies(Adam Mickiewicz University, Faculty of Philosophy, 2023-12-28) McGregor, Sue L. T.This paper concerns ethical considerations when conducting research about the policies, procedures, practices, and culture of organizations and institutions rather than research with the humans owning, operating, employed at, volunteering for, benefiting from, or impacted by the organization. Ethical conventions for research with humans are well developed but less so for research about organizations. A pressing concern in the nascent literature is weighing protecting the public interest versus the organization’s interests when sensitive, controversial, or damning information about the latter emerges from the research. Given the absence of formally codified procedural ethics, organizational researchers are encouraged to constantly reexamine, debate, and address related ethical concerns. In that spirit, an inaugural compendium of ethical concerns and recommended strategies gleaned from the literature reviewed is shared, and a discussion of omissions from said literature is tendered to scaffold future conversations around this ethical aspect of organizational research.Item Do We Need Autistic Autism Researchers to Understand Autism?(Adam Mickiewicz University, Faculty of Philosophy, 2023-12-28) Kędra, AgnieszkaThe assumption that autistic individuals do not have the theory of mind – the social-cognitive ability to understand other people by attributing mental states to them – has been widespread in the psychological literature. However, the empirical evidence from the original research and its replications failed to prove and support autistic mind-blindness. Yet, it is still present in literature on autism spectrum. Meanwhile, convincing research, that has been conducted among autistic researchers and their allies, is often overlooked by non-autistic specialists. This paper focuses on how autistic autism researchers have been influencing their field of study and how academy can benefit from their work.Item “Bird in a Cage”: Traditions and Customs That Restrict Women’s Rights in the Kazakh Context as a Research Topic(Adam Mickiewicz University, Faculty of Philosophy, 2023-12-28) Absatar, Aruzhan; Alishayeva, BotakozKazakh traditional wisdom says “Kaytyp kelgen kyz zhaman” – a girl who returns to her parental home after marriage is a disgrace to the family. According to a women’s rights organization, up to 5,000 bride kidnapping acts occur annually in contemporary Kazakhstan. The authors would like to approach this socio-cultural phenomenon through considering the current situation of women and their rights in Kazakhstan. The article examines how outdated traditions and customs violate women’s’ personal boundaries and rights in Kazakhstan. Its main purpose is to attract the attention of the reader and potential researcher and to familiarize them with the topic (a specific form of violence against women), research methods, and research challenges. Until September 2019, there was no special legislation in Kazakhstan aimed at combating domestic violence. However, with the adoption of the Law “On the Prevention of Domestic Violence and the Protection of Victims of Domestic Violence” in September 2019, Kazakhstan introduced institutional measures to prevent and punish domestic violence. Nevertheless, people continue to follow their traditional customs, rather than live in accordance with new legislation.Item Assessing the Online Scientific Community’s Support for Various Reasons for Article Retraction: A Preliminary Survey(Adam Mickiewicz University, Faculty of Philosophy, 2023-12-28) Namuth, August; Brown, Mitch; Macchione, Alicia; Sacco, DonaldA prevailing lay understanding of retraction in the scientific literature is to correct for misconduct and honest errors. Nonetheless, though historically rare, retractions to limit the spread of results deemed socially harmful (i.e., information hazards), have gained increasing traction and become increasingly common. This study sought primarily to determine the extent to which information hazard-based retraction is supported in the scientific community and as a secondary goal whether individual difference variables moderate receptivity. We tasked a diverse sample of researchers across various disciplines who use social media to evaluate scenarios in which a paper was retracted for misconduct, honest errors, and information hazards. Overall, support for retraction on the basis of information hazards was low, suggesting that researchers overwhelmingly support academic freedom as a concept. Nonetheless, left-leaning ideologies predicted slightly greater defensibility of the practice among individuals early in their careers. We provide training suggestions to mitigate reactance toward controversial scientific findings.Item Inappropriate Use of Submission and Rejection Emails for Advertising Revision Services and Congresses(Adam Mickiewicz University, Faculty of Philosophy, 2023-12-28) Teixeira da Silva, Jaime A.Finding a niche journal for the submission of an academic paper can sometimes be a challenge for authors, and finding the right choice may involve a series of submissions and rejections. Emails from editors and journals related to the submission or rejection of a paper should be strictly related to these purposes, i.e., to inform authors that their paper has been received, outline the subsequent editorial handling or peer reviewer steps in the former, or the reasons for rejection in the latter. This paper highlights four cases of – in the author’s opinion – the abuse of such emails by COPE member journals and publishers (Emerald Publishing Ltd., Springer Nature, Elsevier, Wiley) to advertise for-profit English revision and editing services and/or conferences, as a way to maximize these emails for a dual purpose, namely to inform authors of submission-related aspects (valid communication) while also trying to obtain clients and thus business for non-submission-related aspects (invalid communication). Since an abuse of email-based communication for non-academic purposes is an ethics-related matter, there is a need for systematic research of this potential abuse of emails from both COPE member and non-member journals.Item Detection of Conspiracy Narratives Using the Information Marker Method. A Study in the Methodology and Philosophy of Information(Adam Mickiewicz University, Faculty of Philosophy, 2023-12-28) Szynkiewicz, MariuszThe article will present the main assumptions of the information marker method, which can be used for recognizing the characteristics of conspiracy theories conveyed in the content of informational messages – texts, statements, recordings, etc. The proposed method draws on the conspiracy thinking model CONSPIR (Lewandowsky & Cook 2020) and has a practical component. However, the technique presented in the paper constitutes a modification and addition to the original proposal. First, it deals with a problem frame that is different from that of CONSPIR, since it is applied to formulated information messages. Hence the marker method is not an instrument for analyzing cognitive attitudes or patterns of conspiracy thinking. Secondly, the proposed tool is profiled in terms of content focused on scientific issues (mainly pertaining to the natural and applied sciences). Third, given the characteristics and structure of the communication under consideration, I replace the widely used term “conspiracy theory” with the more universal concept of “conspiracy narrative,” which seems to reflect more adequately the specific features of such information messages. Fourth, given the more specific purpose of the marker method compared to that of the CONSPIR model, I will try (where possible) to refrain from citing specific examples of conspiracy narratives, referring to singular events and personal examples. Consequently, to use a phrase widely used in methodology, the presented technique can be applied to all cases of a given type.Item The Role of Personal Values in Forming the AI Ethics of Prospective Accountants(Adam Mickiewicz University, Faculty of Philosophy, 2023-12-28) Latifah, Lyna; Rediana Setiyani; Arief, Sandy; Nurdian SusilowatiThis study aims to discuss how to form AI (Artificial Intelligence) ethical behavior with insight into the personal and organizational values of prospective accountants. This was a quantitative survey method. The sampling technique with a saturated sample was used as the research sample. Partial Least Square (PLS) analysis was conducted on 421 data points using WarpPLS software. The study results show that organizational and personal values significantly positively affect the intention of prospective accountant students to engage in AI ethics. Organizational values have a positive effect on the personal values of prospective accounting students. Intentions had a significant effect on AI ethics. Personal values did not play a role in mediating the impact of organizational values on intentions toward AI ethics. Intention succeeds in mediating the influence of personal values on the intention to engage in AI ethics among prospective accountant students. The findings referred to are very applicable to be implemented in different cultural settings due to the personal and organizational values tend to be implemented in general situation and condition. The findings provide universal outlook that values within organizations have an essential role in enhancing future accountants to be ethical in respect to AI.Item To Whom Does the Knowledge Belong? The Researcher-Researched Relationship and Vulnerability in Refugee Studies(Adam Mickiewicz University, Faculty of Philosophy, 2023-12-28) Krawczyk, Mateusz M.; Joël Kikalage DieudonnéResearch ethics address concerns related to power imbalances. These dynamics are particularly prominent in refugee camps, where the contemporary ‘protracted’ state (UNHCR, 2004) turns them into quasi-laboratories, where refugees are subjected to scrutiny, measurement, observation, and analysis by researchers, NGOs, and governmental organizations. Researchers typically conduct brief field trips to perform predetermined scientific activities, limiting their comprehensive understanding of the subject under study. Fieldwork conducted in Nakivale Refugee Settlement (Uganda) since 2019 has highlighted an often-one-way communication dynamic between researchers and refugees, where refugees rarely receive feedback on the information they provide. Consequently, refugees develop a lack of trust towards researchers, impacting their subjectivity and self-esteem. They perceive themselves as information providers rather than owners, lacking simultaneous access to that information. The concept of power-knowledge (Foucault 1980) is instrumental in understanding this issue and reflecting on researchers’ responsibilities in studying vulnerable populations.Item The Problem with Longtermism(Adam Mickiewicz University, Faculty of Philosophy, 2023-12-28) Hyde, B.V.E.Moral circle expansion has been occurring faster than ever before in the last forty years, with moral agency fully extended to all humans regardless of their ethnicity, and regardless of their geographical location, as well as to animals, plants, ecosystems and even artificial intelligence. This process has made even more headway in recent years with the establishment of moral obligations towards future generations. Responsible for this development is the moral theory – and its associated movement – of longtermism, the bible of which is What We Owe the Future (London: Oneworld, 2022) by William MacAskill, whose book Doing Good Better (London: Guardian Faber, 2015) set the cornerstone of the effective altruist movement of which longtermism forms a part. With its novelty comes great excitement, but longtermism and the arguments on its behalf are not yet well thought out, suffering from various problems and entailing various uncomfortable positions on population axiology and the philosophy of history. This essay advances a number of novel criticisms of longtermism; its aim is to identify further avenues for research required by longtermists, and to establish a standard for the future development of the movement if it is to ever be widely considered as sound. Some of the issues raised here are about the arguments for the moral value of the future; the quantification of that value with the longtermist ethical calculus – or the conjunction of expected value theory with the ‘significance, persistence, contingency’ (SPC) framework; the moral value of making happy people; and our ability to affect the future and the fragility of history. Perhaps the most significant finding of this study is that longtermism currently constitutes a shorterm view on the longterm future, and that a properly longterm view reduces to absurdity.