Ethos Academic Scientific Community in Conditions of Openness

The article deals with the moral norms of a modern academic scientist. In the first half of the 20th century, R. Merton brought forth the moral imperatives of a scientist in the field of Universalism, Communism, Disinterestedness, Organized scepticism, which, in spite of criticism, were practically the only system of a scientist's moral standards proposed by the sociology of science. In recent years, studies of the ethics of the scientific community have shown that R. Merton's moral standards are too idealistic for a scientist and do not work and are incompatible with the realities of the production of scientific knowledge in the world. In their article, the authors analyses the moral standards and anti-norms of the scientific community of the 20th century and the characteristic features of modern science-technology science. The study shows that R. Merton's norms did indeed have an impact within the academic ethos of science, but not the technological sciences where these norms have little influence. The authors conclude that it was precisely the norms of R. Merton that greatly contributed to the education of subsequent scientific manpower within the walls of the university and were an important moral guideline within the framework of the academic science. The article also analyses the conditions for the existence of modern universities, where competition is of a great importance. The authors concluded that these conditions do not contribute to the strengthening of these norms in the minds of academic scientists, which can subsequently adversely affect the development of scientific ethos in general.