<p>I see two components, one specific, the other general, both important.</p>

<p><strong>Specifically:</strong> To look at how other fields have dealt with this problem, I would point to bio-ethics, which (as a commenter notes) is its own discipline. This is for a concrete, practical, reason -- the morality of some questions simply can't be addressed, unless you're also a technical expert. For example, it would totally be ethical to encourage the donation of both kidneys, to save somebody else's life -- IF, you could survive without kidneys! You can live after you lose one. Why not two? It is precisely because of a medical fact (you need at least one kidney) that makes it unethical.</p>

<p>This is the reason that "give it to the ethicists" is not a general solution. I would be in favor of migrating those questions that do not require technical expertise to evaluate, but don't know how often such a question would arise here, and think statisticians might often be a bad judge of that requirement.</p>

<p>More fundamentally, and when we can't off-shore it, statistics is simply full of ethical problems that only we can assess. What are the ethical problems with not cross-validating a model? How about ignoring outliers? Assuming correlation implies causation? Fudging correlation/causation arguably destroyed Greece's economy. But beyond that ...</p>

<p><strong>Generally:</strong> What we do has consequences. As statisticians, and as people. This cannot be avoided. And what we do here is powerful. A few short months ago, Facebook said Targeting is Good! Rules are bad! Now, Facebook says Sorry we <a href="http://www.npr.org/2017/09/15/551163392/facebook-enabled-ads-targeting-anti-semites" rel="nofollow noreferrer">turned out the "how to burn Jews" vote!</a> Maybe, some rules! This WILL happen, here. I'm not going to wait for a disaster to conclude that I should consider my actions.</p>

<p>What does this mean for the site? It means that I'm completely in favor of a flag. To me, Flag a Moderator simply means This is Important, and Difficult, and I'd Like Help. Doesn't mean you'll get it.  Doesn't mean the question is actually unethical. Doesn't mean anybody knows the answer. But at LEAST, it's something I want to be able to say.</p>

<p>Since I'm also cognizant of the vast amount of work moderators put in (often though, in areas like Culture, which is pretty ethical already), well, Case 1, there are a small number of questions, so it's manageable. Case 2, it turns out there are a ton of questionable questions -- well then it's a really good thing we started looking for them, no? And, to learn from the biologists, I would be completely in favor of having a Statistical Ethics Moderator, to accompany the Technical Moderators, and appropriately divided the specialized work.</p>

<p>Because it IS a lot of work, and it is hard -- so I want to give it the resources it deserves.</p>
