ABSTRACT
Previous chapters involved an implicit motivation: a commitment to good research. Good research usually refers to research that is technically done well according to the methodological formulae, and moral “goodness” is usually relegated to an ethical review process. I review several scholars that challenge this common practice and argue that it is impossible to separate personal moral life from professional research practice. As such, this chapter presents how researchers in CSR ought to become broader in terms of what good research entails. This presentation involves the expansion of the notion of “goodness” to include virtue: good research is virtuous research. I first recap James’ approach to discuss how it aligns with the notion of virtue. The chapter, then, via illustrations of current work, discusses how researchers in the cognitive science of religion want to be value neutral in their quest for a scientific psychology but simultaneously espouse a virtue of methodological rigor – an unstated proscriptive goodness. I challenge this ethic as the sole virtue and raise a discussion of good in terms of the character of one doing the cognitive science of religion. Such a discussion rests upon the importance of careful interpretation and coming to personally understand a community.
