2 Intentional vs Unintentional Unethical Behaviour
2.1 Why is unintentional unethical behaviour concerning?
Unintentional or accidental unethical behaviour occurs when actions are not recognized or perceived by the actor or observer as being unethical or having an ethical impact (Chugh et al. 2005; Bazerman and Tenbrunsel, 2012; Sezer et al. 2015). Even those who consider themselves to be ethical may face blind spots that lead to unethical actions, and often overestimate their own moral and ethical positioning (Han and Kim, 2022). Within scientific research, this is in part due to the way science has taught (or rather often failed to teach) ethics. Students, young scientists and even mature scientists can fall into ethical traps without any conscious awareness that their behaviour is unethical.
Intention, however, is not as relevant as action when it comes to ethical decision-making. A lack of awareness or understanding should not be an excuse for unethical behaviour. Lack of knowledge, reflection, training, consideration of other perspectives or outcomes, and even rationalized misconduct all contribute to seemingly unintentional unethical behaviour (Kim and Loewenstein, 2020; Schroeder et al., 2021). We are responsible for our own actions, so we must therefore seek opportunities to develop understanding, awareness, training, mentorship and skills to reflect on applications of ethical considerations. Taking time to consider multiple perspectives, future consequences, biases, and practices for reporting unethical behaviour can help mitigate unintentional or unconscious unethical behaviours
So, how are you to know that listing a lab mate as a co-author when they contributed minimally is unethical if no one has discussed authorship practices with you? It seems like a nice, benign thing to do that can help a co-worker advance their career. Consider consequences of that action, particularly if the paper is retracted or investigated for misconduct. What about consequences if the person is asked to comment on the paper but does not have the relevant understanding of the study? When faced with these sorts of challenges, it is important to take the time to consider the possible outcomes. Using tools such as the suggested ethical decision-making framework, the code of ethical conduct at your institution and applying ethical decision-making lenses (see those presented in Meynell and Paron, 2023) can help clarify the dilemma. It can also be useful to discuss such issues with mentors or trusted peers.
Another barrier to ethical actions or decision-making is that of implicit or unconscious bias (Sezer et al., 2015; Cairns et al., 2021). These types of biases, involving an unconscious negative attitude toward a particular social group, can be associated with a range of tendencies that limit ethical practice of science (e.g., familiarity bias, apophenia, anchoring effect; see Hofman 2023 Table 1; Cairns et al., 2021). Implicit biases are often associated with unethical study design, data interpretation, and clinical interventions associated with race, disability, sex, or gender (Eaton et al., 2020; Wilson et al., 2020; Lew et al., 2022). Such biases can also play a role in the under-reporting of misconduct by other scientists (Gino and Bazerman, 2009). Unconscious bias also limits objective design and assessment of non-human species characteristics, with implications for conservation biology (Britnell et al. 2021). While interventions to mitigate implicit bias exist, convincing data supporting their effectiveness is lacking (FitzGerald et al. 2019). Yet, as individual scientists, we still have the responsibility to acknowledge and address our biases (Asplund & Welle, 2018).
Unintentional unethical practice is an important issue in scientific ethics because accidental or not, unethical behaviour can have lasting impacts. Thus, active engagement with ethical decision-making practice provides a framework for necessary intentionality regardless of position.
2.2 Example – The Challenger Explosion
On January 8th, 1986, the Challenger Space shuttle exploded shortly after it launched. Seven people died in the explosion. Two rubber O rings meant to seal the joint between rocket boosters had been damaged in an unexpected freeze the night before. They were not replaced. Investigations reported that for several years, engineers on the team expressed concern about the fallibility of the O rings and expressed similar concern the night before the launch (Britannica, 2024).
Although the true fault in this tragedy lies with NASA for ignoring their engineers, it could be argued that anyone who worked on the project was being unintentionally unethical for overlooking protocols and skipping safety steps during their checks. Unfortunately, unintended or not, the unethical actions of many people led to this tragedy.
2.3 Practice Questions
- Evolving consent
You work in a lab analyzing human DNA. The DNA you are using was placed in a data bank over 15 years ago with informed consent from the DNA contributors. All donors were to remain anonymous to protect their privacy and have not been contacted since they contributed their DNA. You are not privy to the terms of agreement that were given to the DNA contributors. Usually, DNA is identified through matching unknown samples to known samples. Your experiment is designed to test if it is possible to reverse engineer DNA to identify a subject through a single unknown sample.
2. Misplaced samples
You have just received feedback on some recent lab work that indicates your results are ready to be shared more broadly. Your experiment required you to take samples of maple leaves from different trees as temperatures decreased over time. You stored your samples in the lab’s communal fridge. Now that your results are going to be shared, you have been asked to clean out your samples to make space for new experiments. While cleaning out the fridge, you realize that one of your sample bags fell from your shelf and was behind your lab mate’s large box of samples. You realize that though you included these samples in your overall sample count (n), you never processed the samples. This means that your data is no longer accurate.
3. Bad stock solution
You are collaborating on a new experiment with an American co-author that will use PCR amplification. In preparation for the experiment, you have diluted a new PCR amplification buffer. Your co-author wished to try some different dilutions to see if it makes a difference in PCR specificity. You follow the dilutions they requested and run the experiment. The tests show some interesting and unexpected results. Later you are rereading some of your co-author’s notes and notice that they have been using ounces and gallons instead of grams and litres in their measurements. You realize that this means that your dilutions are incorrect, and the results may be invalid. When you explain this discrepancy to your co-author, they wish to proceed with the experiment regardless.
4. Consequences of stem cell research
You are working as a researcher in lab studying stem cells. Specifically, you and your co-researchers are trying to develop a protocol to regenerate tissue from stem cells. The idea is that if you can use a patient’s own cells to grow tissue, transplantation rejection would be unlikely to occur. You have proceeded to animal trials using rats which appear to be successful. This is extremely exciting news, and you prepare to share your results. A few weeks later, you go back to check on the rats and discover that the transferred cells have become malignant and necrotic.
