Ethics Course Topics

C. Neal Stewart and J. Lannett Edwards recently taught a graduate level ethics course, Research Ethics for the Life Sciences. See The Scientist for a longer account account and for more detail on their course. See this link for a copy of their syllabus.

I thought their list of topics was instructive:

• plagiarism
• authorship
• grantsmanship*
• peer review
• research misconduct
• image fraud
• whistle-blowing*
• conflicts of interest
• patenting*
• women in science* (as a special topic)

* designates topics we do not cover in our book

Their recommendations for teaching such a course also bear attention:

• Team teach
• Use case studies
• Use practical examples
• Keep it light
• Keep class size small
• Focus on ethics not morality

On page 72, we distinguish between ethics and morality in an In the Know box. We use the American Heritage Dictionary of the American Language as a source and say, "Morality relates to personal and sexual behavior according to societal strictures. Ethics, on the other hand, is derived from philosophy and attempts to provide objective and idealistic standards for human conduct."