Interdisciplinary Studies in Ethics

Interdisciplinary Studies in Ethics

Research Ethics Studies; An Analysis of Methodological Frameworks

Document Type : Original Article

Author
sayyed hossein hosseini
Associate Professor of Philosophy and Methodology, Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies, Tehran, Iran.
10.48308/jiethics.2026.244335.1067
Abstract
Introduction: This article seeks to provide methodological frameworks for research on the issue of “research ethics” and therefore proposes the central topics of the structure of the discussion. The main question is what issues should be considered in order to research the issue of research ethics and what is the method of designing and analyzing it.
It will be very important and key to define the position of the discussion in which field and in which category of existing and emerging trends in the field of humanities, which will show itself in the same proportion, designing the problem statement and then determining the method of solving and analyzing the problem. The angle of view of this article on the issue of research ethics is not from the perspective of ethics and the conventional categories of applied ethics, normative ethics, and metaethics, but from the perspective of scientific philosophy studies and within the framework of methodological studies.
Findings: The article shows that research ethics is not simply a set of individual moral virtues, but rather a network of conscious and unconscious mechanisms in collective, institutional, and social contexts. Finally, the “multilevel network/critical analysis” model is presented as a methodological framework and formulates research ethics in four layers: individual, group, organizational, and social.
Discussion: The issue of “research ethics” in Persian literature has been less analyzed as a methodological issue, especially from the perspective of philosophy of science studies, and therefore has often been reduced to a set of behavioral rules or individual virtues of the researcher. By adopting a critical approach within the scope of philosophy of science studies, this article seeks to reconstruct the methodological frameworks of research in research ethics and attempts to analyze research ethics not as a branch of applied ethics, but as a matter of structural self-awareness of the social network of science. The question is what is the unit of analysis of the research ethics issue and what is the appropriate methodological structure and framework that can enable its comprehensive analysis.

In the analysis of the issue, first the concept of research ethics is elevated from the individual normative level to the collective, structural, and network levels, and then the relationship between ethics and research is analyzed at four levels: individual, group, organizational, and social.
Keywords
Critical Methodology
Research Ethics
Philosophy of Science
Unit of Analysis of the Issue
Social Network
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Interdisciplinary Studies in Ethics
Volume 2, Issue 1 - Serial Number 1
September 2026
Pages 7-30

  • Receive Date 13 May 2026
  • Revise Date 29 July 2026
  • Accept Date 15 August 2026
  • First Publish Date 15 August 2026
  • Publish Date 21 March 2026