Economics as part of a system of research ethics

I agree with K. William Kapp (1949 [1963], 3) who sees ‘economics as part of a system of applied ethics’. The issue here is whether self-interested scholars can increase the intellectual welfare of the scholarly community if they are utility maximizers only. Absent a system of ethics, I argue, intellectual welfare cannot be continuously increased. If concerns about the harmful consequences of erroneous theories remain external to scholarship, issues about the morality of research remain external as well. Economists, like other social and natural scientists, should take into account the negative ‘externalities’ of QRPs.