Science in the modern world

On the social responsibility of a scientist

On 17 November, a seminar "Corporate ethics of a scientific organization: fashion, illusion, reality" was held in the conference hall of the Laboratory of Nuclear Problems of JINR within the framework of the Scientific Communications Group project "Useful skills of scientific employees". It was chaired by JINR Director Advisor for International Cooperation Irek Suleymanov.

We are presenting an overview of the speech to readers in the hope that as many employees as possible will view the full version of the seminar on the Laboratory of Nuclear Problems website. This is rich historical material with comments from the author of the seminar and concepts that are useful for every researcher to think about.

Ethics is a philosophical discipline that deals with the study of morality and decency in a variety of contexts, including corporate ones.

People began to think about behavior among their own kind from the earliest stages of the emergence of society. It is impossible to assign a police inspector to every person to monitor whether he acts properly. Therefore, the idea of a self-regulatory system, when a person, based on his beliefs, performs socially useful actions, underlies massive, epoch-making documents - sets of rules and norms of behavior (for example, biblical commandments).

As an example, the speaker cited the memoirs of the political scientist Fedor Burlatsky. In 1961, on party instructions, the Moral Code of the Builders of Communism was drawn up in just an hour and a half. In the process of its establishment, it was proposed to use biblical commandments along with communist postulates - "then everything will really "fall" on the public consciousness."

If we move to the corporate level - a community of people that are bound, in particular, by labor relations - then it is important to note the occurrence of a corporate culture. This is the totality of all patterns of behavior that have developed in a particular organization. That is, the cumulative influence of its entire history, in the case of our Institute, is almost seventy years.

"And I especially like this definition: This is how we do things around here - "It's customary here, we do it this way," the speaker noted. "This is one of the first phrases that I heard when I came to work at JINR. Such unspoken rules, often unformalized, constitute corporate culture."

On the basis of corporate culture, corporate ethics is developed - a value system that regulates ethical relations in a particular organization. It includes two main subsystems: moral and ethical values (that is, beliefs that we accept as important in a particular organization) and the second component, norms and rules of employee behavior (when we clearly know - yes, it is desirable to act this way). Ethical corporate standards, as a rule, are registered in the form of relevant documents.

The history of this issue is related to economic and industrial development in Western countries. After a series of economic shocks, there was a need to develop long-term financial investments, the so-called "long" money. Therefore, the ideologists of strategic management thought about building long-term trust both within the organization and trust in the company from society.

One of the tools for building trust both within the team and outside is the formalization of norms in the form of codes of corporate ethics. They determine the procedure for resolving conflicts, regulate norms of behavior and morality, the procedure for making decisions in difficult situations and form a positive image of the organization.

For example, the code of ethics at Gazprom International Limited is a 17-page document that spells out such concepts as: mission and corporate values, employee relations, labor protection, conflicts of interest, joint work of relatives, gifts and so on.

In Russia, codes of ethics start to appear very extensively in 2008-2010 and at first, they often repeat the provisions of the organization's charter. The volume of these documents gradually increases.

I.Suleymanov said about the Institute's ethical document: "I came across it when I was working on a brochure on external communications. In particular, I was interested in whether there are any regulatory standards when an employee has the right to state something on behalf of the Institute. And it turned out that these issues are mentioned in the Code of Professional Ethics for JINR Employees. It is formulated in terms of provisions and principles that postulate guidelines for members of our corporation."

Further, the speaker emphasized the difference between corporate ethics and professional ethics. For example, in a clinic, a doctor is a meaning-forming component of the entire organization and its statutory activities. In our case, these are scientists - people that produce new knowledge in order to understand the fundamental properties of matter. Historically, this type of profession has a special significance for society. For, from a doctor we expect objectivity, sincerity and the use of all his knowledge to cure us. Similar expectations are addressed to scientists. These "liberal professions" should be regulated by the increased ethical and moral expectations of society.

The development of such views was greatly influenced by the guild culture in the Middle Ages, when representatives of one profession united and regulated the behavior of their representatives. Another interesting document is the encyclical Rerum Novarum, an open letter from Pope Leo XIII, published in 1891. During this period, trade unions began to develop and the pope spoke out in support of them.

Turning again to the scientific community, I.Suleymanov cited a quote from the Italian philosopher Evandro Agazzi: "The main thing for science is knowledge, the main thing for technology is the creation of something useful." These high idealistic guidelines for the scientific community were specified in the principles of Robert Merton's "Imperatives of a Scientific Ethnicity": universalism, collectivism, selflessness, organized skepticism.

There is also an explanation for these provisions: to transfer your scientific results to colleagues as quickly as possible, but not to rush into publications; to be receptive to new ideas, but not to succumb to intellectual fashion; to strive to obtain knowledge that will be highly appreciated by colleagues, but to work without paying attention to the estimation of the results of your research; to defend new ideas, but not to support rash conclusions; to make every effort to know the work related to his field, but at the same time to remember that erudition sometimes inhibits creativity; to be careful in wording and detail, but not pedantic; always to remember that knowledge is universal, but not to forget that every scientific discovery brings honor to the nation whose representative it was made; to educate a new generation of scientists, but not to devote too much time to teaching; to learn from a great master and to imitate him, but not to be like him.

Robert Merton's principles, formulated in 1942, have been criticized because they are not always easy to follow in the daily life of a scientist. And it created another pole in the formulation of ethical standards. In particular, sociologist Steve Fuller defined "Earthly Norms" based on the realities of scientific practice.

He said that Merton's collectivism in practice degenerates into the "mafia" nature of science - you need to maintain good relations with scientific bosses and then everything will be fine. In his opinion, there is no universalism, there is "Cultural imperialism" - the dominance of Anglo-American magazines. There is no selflessness, there is opportunism - indifference to how the results will be used. Fuller contrasted organized skepticism with collective irresponsibility - the establishment of many boards and committees with a vague area of responsibility. It is clear that this is the other extreme.

How does the scientific community react to issues of professional ethics? There are a variety of attempts to create some kind of value basis for ethical scientific activity. One such example is the code of ethics formulated by young scientists under the auspices of the World Economic Forum. It largely correlates with Merton's idealistic ideas, but is close to reality and does not scare away scientists.

In a different approach, the German Research Foundation (DFG) has developed a Guide to Conserving Good Scientific Practice. The process of producing scientific knowledge was studied, divided into various phases and postulates of behavior were formulated for each of them.

One of the features of the scientific community and the scientific profession, and this tradition comes from the Middle Ages, is to talk about academic freedom. This is an advance that society gives specifically to the scientist.

A scientist, making a discovery, essentially breaks current rules, does something that others have not done before. It is clear that it can result in professional deformation when a scientist, being outside his community, commits "offenses" (in S.Fuller's terminology, a "reasonable offense"), transferring his presumption to other professional communities. And here we are talking about the special responsibility of a scientist. An example of the responsibility of a scientist, a tuning fork of the significance of his high ideals for all humanity is the Russell-Einstein Manifesto of 9 July, 1955:

"We believe that in the tragic situation that humanity faces, scientists should gather at a conference in order to estimate the danger that has occurred as a result of the production of weapons of mass destruction and to make a resolution in the spirit of the attached draft...

The path of permanent progress, happiness, knowledge and wisdom lies before us. Will we choose death instead just because we can't forget our fights? We appeal as people to people: remember that you belong to the human race and forget about everything else. If you can do this, then the path to a new paradise is open to you; if you don't do this, then you face the danger of universal destruction."

In such cases, the question of choice arises as how a particular professional community should act. Of course, you can lower the guidelines closer to reality, to practice. But maybe it's worth bringing reality closer to the high ideals that Merton formulated?..

In the second half of the seminar, I.Suleymanov commented on the results of a mini-survey that had been carried out among participants using QR codes. Afterwards, he answered the questions of listeners. JINR Scientific Leader Academician V.A.Matveev spoke about his experience in the process of approving the Code of Professional Ethics for JINR Employees. Other participants of the seminar also shared their opinions.

The Code of Professional Ethics for JINR Employees is available on the official website of the Institute in the section "Documents".

Galina MYALKOVSKAYA
Illustrations from the speaker's report