The role of descriptive ethics in the design of research ethics procedures in the social sciences

This paper examines how the growing field of descriptive ethics (the empirical study of ethical beliefs and behaviours) can inform the design of formal research ethics procedures. While social science, particularly in the United Kingdom, has increasingly adopted formalised procedures of ethical review, little attention has been paid to what researchers across different disciplines understand ethical practices and standards to mean, and how social scientists arrive at moral judgements about their work, negotiate dilemmas and resolve competing ethical demands. This paper considers how turning the lens of descriptive ethics onto the practice of social science may interrogate some of these issues. Potential areas for study include how particular disciplines conceive of what it means to be ethical and the negotiation of moral dilemmas when performing research in real-world contexts. Particular attention will be paid to ethnographic and qualitative research within social anthropology and cognate disciplines.