Abstract

The paper presented in this WSC 2023 IPS explores ways to answer the question of whether ethics for official statistics are global/universal or need to be adapted to national circumstances. It concludes that global/universal ethics for official statistics is the answer on various grounds; including due to the fact that global ethics fit the production of a global public good in the context of a long-term tendency towards globalization and interdependence of societies/communities on this planet in economic, environmental, public health, scientific/knowledge, etc. matters. The paper begins its exploration by drawing distinctions between ethics for official statistics (A) as the sought-after object of knowledge that should guide practices at the level of the individual and of institutions; (B) as existing supranational codifications of ethics (such as the UNFP and the ESCOP); and (C) as ‘national’ approaches to ethics, revealed in practices considered legitimate within a given country or jurisdiction. The paper refers to various philosophical perspectives to inform its exploration: from those in the fundamental debate between Socrates and the Sophists, to the perspectives of various forms of Consequentialism, Pragmatism, Critical Theories, etc. The paper also uses examples from the history of official statistics. In this context, it presents a schematic view of the process by which the ethics for official statistics are discovered. The process is one of repeated bouts of critique and reformulation of current understandings of these ethics to address accumulating anomalies and outright crises involving the production of official statistics. The paper discusses how national approaches to ethics in their aim to serve multiple imperatives become periodically irreconcilable with the demand for the global public good of high quality, internationally comparable, official statistics generated by powerful processes of increasing globalization and interdependence. Drawing on both philosophical perspectives and its own historical analysis, the paper thus identifies as a pivotal issue the nature of the foundational/organizing principle around which a system of ethics for official statistics is articulated. The paper, explores the implications of the foundational principle for official statistics ethics being solely the production of internationally (globally) comparable statistics as a global public good that is as accurate a picture of reality as possible given current scientific developments and their embodiment (ideally) in international compilation standards and conventions. The paper also explores the implications of having alternative or additional foundational principles (to the one above) for official statistics ethics. It is shown that in this later case there are serious conflicts of interest built into the ethics system from the start. The paper argues that in the case of a unique foundational principle (as above), a universal/global ethics for official statistics is possible and with examination and inquiry it could be discovered; there should be no adaptation of ethics to national circumstances. In the case of alternative or additional foundational principles, no global ethics is possible; instead, national level ethics are appropriate and desirable, in a relativist manner, and any supranational codifications of ethics should be basically permissive and flexibly interpreted. The paper also discusses commonly encountered views that existing major existing supranational codifications of ethics for official statistics are Eurocentric—a form of ‘cultural imperialism’—and support ‘neocolonialism’. The paper argues that the implementation of universal statistical ethics can indeed potentially give rise to challenges for the reproduction of political and socioeconomic systems (of various types) but accusations of ‘neocolonialism’ and ‘cultural imperialism’, even regarding the existing, somewhat imperfect, codifications of ethics, are incorrect. The paper concludes with a discussion of what needs to be done (in terms of work, broad methodology, and institutions) to uncover more fully the global ethics of official statistics, keep improving the supranational codifications of ethics to reflect the former, and help national ethics fully align with the above.