ABSTRACT
The social sciences share with all scientific endeavors the need to balance scientific zeal with other values that derive from the social context in which all scientific work takes place. To some extent, the scientific ideal of objectivity inevitably conflicts with humanistic values, and all scientists must at some time come to grips with this conflict. The issue, however, is particularly acute for social scientists because the focus of their research is the behavior of other human beings, and thus not only the goals of research but the very process of data collection is subject to value conflicts. This chapter first considers those ethical issues that are related specifically to research with human respondents and then focuses on the more general issues of concern to all scientists in their choice of research problem and strategy of data reporting.
