Ethical responsibility of universities: legal, social and political dimensions

Abstract

The ethical responsibility of universities is embodied in the responsibility of university stakeholders who ensure the functioning of universities as social organizations designed to provide higher education. The research methodology consists of the theory of social systems, which includes institutional analysis, philosophy of communication and subordinate special methods, such as document analysis, value and functional analysis. Ethical responsibility of universities is specified in the specifics of the regulatory framework of ethical responsibility, educational vocation, ethics of responsibility, institutional principles of ethics of responsibility, the relationship of political and academic independence, academic freedom as a prerequisite for ethical responsibility of universities and their representatives. Ethical responsibility involves the acceptance by a person of moral and ethical norms – both universal academic ethical norms and moral and ethical norms adopted in the academic community of a particular university. Such acceptance presupposes both the recognition by the individual of certain academic values and academic virtues, and the responsibility for the consequences of his activity or inaction as a representative of the university or a participant in the organization of its functioning. This includes both compliance with the statutory norms of the university and compliance with a wider range of ethical norms – from universalist ethical norms to those recorded in international and domestic official documents governing activities and communication in the academic sphere. The article analyzes the main normative documents available in Ukraine and Europe, which regulate ethical responsibility in the educational sphere, also considers the specifics of university stakeholders and identifies the political component of ethical responsibility of universities in comparison with the responsibility of think tanks.