Moralism and the Situated Character of Qualitative Research Practice

1. Martyn Hammersley The Open University Anna Traianou Goldsmiths, University of London Moralism and the Situated Character of Qualitative Research Practice

2. Increased Attention to Research Ethics Growing use of visual and online data, generating new problems. The rise of ethical regulation: from codes to committees. Fragmentation of qualitative research, involving fundamental divisions, many of these relating to ethics.

3. Moralism The ‘vice of overdoing morality’ (Coady 2005:101) Two forms: • The belief that ethical values are integral to the goal of research. • The requirement that researchers adhere to ‘high’, perhaps even the ‘highest’ ethical standards.

4. Ethical values as integral to the goal of research This can take several forms: • The insistence that educational research be educative, in other words directly geared to bringing about educational improvement and therefore governed by educational values. • ESRC’s requirement that the projects it funds should meet ‘the needs of users and beneficiaries, thereby contributing to the economic competitiveness of the United Kingdom, the effectiveness of public services and policy, and the quality of life’. • Many qualitative researchers insist that inquiry should be geared to liberal, radical, feminist, anti-racist, etc. goals and values, and this involves the requirement that in carrying out their work researchers must seek to realize the relevant political or ethical values.

5. Ethics and the research goal The primary ethical obligation of the researcher is to pursue the production of value-relevant knowledge. Yet, curiously, this is rarely given attention in discussions of research ethics. So, the values that underpin judgments about how the people being studied should be treatedare extrinsic to the task of research: they are not constitutive of its goal. As such they operate as external constraints on, rather than as inner directives for, the research process.  

6. Research ethics as a form of occupational or professional ethics There are at least two components to a professional orientation: • dedication; • autonomy.

7. Dedication This term carries at least two meanings: • The sole immediate commitment of researchersshould be to the task of producing knowledge; they should not pursue other goals simultaneously or as alternatives, under the auspices of research. • A high level of commitment is required because research is a very demanding activity. It requires researchers to find answers to questions that make a significant contribution to current, collective knowledge within research communities, and to do so in ways that meet a threshold of likely validity that is higher, as a general standard, than that which is employed by other people in other contexts.

8. Autonomy • If research is to be done well, researchers must have considerable discretion in deciding what the task entails in any particular case and how it should be carriedout. • Attempts by agencies to promote or block particular topics of investigation, to specify what methods should be used or to rule out others, or to shape or block publication of the findings, need to be resisted – where they are at odds with the professional judgment of the researchers concerned. This is the core of academic freedom.

9. The tyranny of ‘high standards’ The second major aspect of moralism is that it gives too much weight to what we have called extrinsic values, by requiring that researchers seek to act in terms of the highest standard of these. Potentially this makes impossible, or at least intractable, either the pursuit of knowledge in general or at least the investigation of particular research questions.

10. What extrinsic values are of importance to educational research? • There is no straightforward manner of identifying these values, in the way that there is for intrinsic values. • They can be any values an individual researcher happens to be committed to. • However, it is possible to identify a number of such values that are often given priority by social scientists. The main ones are: minimization of harm, respect for autonomy, protection of privacy, maintenance of trust, exercising reciprocity and equitable treatment.

11. Machiavellianism We can contrast moralism with Machiavellianism: • This is the idea that, given the imperfect nature of the world, and especially of human beings, if we are to pursue good things effectively, we may have to act in ways that breach important values, and act unethically in terms of these. • Such machiavellianism is institutionalised in the way that members of particular professions are allowed to breach various moral rules that would normally apply. In other words, they are given some licence. • Examples include doctors ignoring immorality or illegality, and journalists invading privacy. Without this, they could not do their work effectively, work which (it is argued) potentially benefits everyone.

12. So, what sorts of licence should educational researchers claim? • In collecting data, it may be necessary to toleratebehaviour that the researcher and many other people believe is wrong – up to and including acts that are illegal • It may sometimes be necessary to deceive people, actively or passively (for example, through not correcting misapprehensions), if data are to be obtained. • It may be necessary to ask questions whose implications could be taken to be unethical or politically undesirable, for instance as sexist or racist

13. Conflict between intrinsic and extrinsic values A significant implication of our argument is that there can be a fundamental conflict between research as a professional activity and some religious, political, or ethical worldviews: Those that insist on certain values and rules being applied at all times and across all contexts, allowing no waiving or relaxing of these for particular purposes or in particular circumstances.

14. An ‘ethic of responsibility’ • In Max Weber’s terms, commitment to an ‘ethics of ultimate ends’ is incompatible with research (and indeed with other specialized activities), what is required instead is an ‘ethic of responsibility’. • Our argument is not that what we have called extrinsic values can simply be ignored, it is about the degree to which, and ways in which, these values should constrain the actions of the researcher; and also about who should make decisions about this.

15. Conclusion • Our objection to moralism is itself an ethical one, in the sense that it rests on ethical grounds. • We have shown that a wider definition is required that incorporates values that are intrinsic to the profession of research as well as relevant extrinsic ones. • It is precisely in terms of these intrinsic values that we judge moralism, of both the kinds we have discussed, to be unethical for researchers.