Applied ethics - Wikipedia Applied ethics From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigation Jump to search "Practical ethics" redirects here. For the book, see Practical Ethics. Practical application of moral considerations This article includes a list of general references, but it remains largely unverified because it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (September 2011) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) Applied ethics refers to the practical application of moral considerations. It is ethics with respect to real-world actions and their moral considerations in the areas of private and public life, the professions, health, technology, law, and leadership.[1] For example, the bioethics community is concerned with identifying the correct approach to moral issues in the life sciences, such as euthanasia, the allocation of scarce health resources, or the use of human embryos in research.[2][3][4] Environmental ethics is concerned with ecological issues such as the responsibility of government and corporations to clean up pollution.[5] Business ethics includes questions regarding the duties or duty of 'whistleblowers' to the general public or their loyalty to their employers.[6] Applied ethics has expanded the study of ethics beyond the realms of academic philosophical discourse.[7] The field of applied ethics, as it appears today, emerged from debate surrounding rapid medical and technological advances in the early 1970s and is now established as a subdiscipline of moral philosophy. However, applied ethics is, by its very nature, a multi-professional subject because it requires specialist understanding of the potential ethical issues in fields like medicine, business or information technology. Nowadays, ethical codes of conduct exist in almost every profession.[8] An applied ethics approach to the examination of moral dilemmas can take many different forms but one of the most influential and most widely utilised approaches in bioethics and health care ethics is the four-principle approach developed by Tom Beauchamp and James Childress.[9] The four-principle approach, commonly termed principlism, entails consideration and application of four prima facie ethical principles: autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence, and justice. Contents 1 Underpinning theory 2 See also 3 References 4 Further reading 5 External links Underpinning theory[edit] Applied ethics is distinguished from normative ethics, which concerns standards for right and wrong behavior, and from meta-ethics, which concerns the nature of ethical properties, statements, attitudes, and judgments.[10] Whilst these three areas of ethics appear to be distinct they are also interrelated. The use of an applied ethics approach often draws upon certain normative ethical theories like the following: Utilitarianism, where the practical consequences of various policies are evaluated on the assumption that the right policy will be the one which results in the greatest happiness. This theory's main developments came from Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill who distinguished between an act and rule utilitarianist morality. Later developments have also adjusted the theory, most notably Henry Sidgwick who introduced the idea of motive or intent in morality, and Peter Singer who introduced the idea of preference in moral decision making. Deontological ethics, notions based on 'rules' i.e. that there is an obligation to perform the 'right' action, regardless of actual consequences (epitomized by Immanuel Kant's notion of the Categorical Imperative which was the centre to Kant's ethical theory based on duty). Another key deontological theory is Natural Law, which was heavily developed by Thomas Aquinas and is an important part of the Catholic Church's teaching on Morals. Virtue ethics, derived from Aristotle's and Confucius's notions, which asserts that the right action will be that chosen by a suitably 'virtuous' agent. Sometimes, these normative ethical theories clash which poses challenges when trying to resolve real-world ethical dilemmas. One approach which attempts to overcome the seemingly impossible divide between deontology and utilitarianism (of which the divide is caused by the opposite takings of an absolute and relativist moral view) is case-based reasoning, also known as casuistry. Casuistry does not begin with theory, rather it starts with the immediate facts of a real and concrete case. While casuistry makes use of ethical theory, it does not view ethical theory as the most important feature of moral reasoning. Casuists, like Albert Jonsen and Stephen Toulmin (The Abuse of Casuistry 1988), challenge the traditional paradigm of applied ethics. Instead of starting from theory and applying theory to a particular case, casuists start with the particular case itself and then ask what morally significant features (including both theory and practical considerations) ought to be considered for that particular case. In their observations of medical ethics committees, Jonsen and Toulmin note that a consensus on particularly problematic moral cases often emerges when participants focus on the facts of the case, rather than on ideology or theory. Thus, a Rabbi, a Catholic priest, and an agnostic might agree that, in this particular case, the best approach is to withhold extraordinary medical care, while disagreeing on the reasons that support their individual positions. By focusing on cases and not on theory, those engaged in moral debate increase the possibility of agreement. See also[edit] Bioethics Business ethics Effective altruism Ethical codes Ethics Medical ethics Outline of ethics Philosophy Precautionary principle References[edit] ^ "Applied Ethics" Oxford Bibliographies. Retrieved June 25, 2017. ^ "Disability and Health Care Rationing" Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved June 25, 2017. ^ "Voluntary Euthanasia" Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved June 25, 2017. ^ "Ethics of Stem Cell Research" Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved June 25, 2017. ^ "Environmental Ethics" Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved June 25, 2017. ^ "Business Ethics" Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved June 25, 2017. ^ Bayertz, K. (2002) Self-enlightenment of Applied Ethics, in: Chadwick, R and Schroeder, D. (eds.) Applied Ethics, Vol1. 36-51, London: Routledge ^ Giorgini, V., Mecca, J. T., Gibson, C., Medeiros, K., Mumford, M. D., Connelly, S., & Devenport, L. D. (2015). Researcher perceptions of ethical guidelines and codes of conduct. Accountability in research, 22(3), 123-138. ^ Beauchamp, T. L. and Childress, J. F. (1994) Principles of medical ethics, New York: Oxford University Press. ^ "Applied Ethics" Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved June 25, 2017. Further reading[edit] Chadwick, R.F. (1997). Encyclopedia of Applied Ethics. London: Academic Press. ISBN 0-12-227065-7. Singer, Peter (1993). Practical Ethics. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-43971-X. (monograph) Cohen, Andrew I. (2005). Contemporary Debates in Applied Ethics. Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 978-1-4051-1548-3. LaFollette, Hugh (2002). Ethics in Practice (2nd Edition). Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 0-631-22834-9. Singer, Peter (1986). Applied Ethics. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-875067-6. Frey, R.G. (2004). A Companion to Applied Ethics. Blackwell. ISBN 1-4051-3345-7. External links[edit] Library resources about Applied ethics Resources in your library Resources in other libraries Applied ethics at PhilPapers "Applied ethics". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. v t e Ethics Normative ethics Consequentialism Utilitarianism Deontology Kantian ethics Ethics of care Existentialist ethics Particularism Pragmatic ethics Role ethics Virtue ethics Eudaimonism Applied ethics Animal ethics Bioethics Business ethics Discourse ethics Engineering ethics Environmental ethics Legal ethics Machine ethics Media ethics Medical ethics Nursing ethics Professional ethics Sexual ethics Ethics of artificial intelligence Ethics of eating meat Ethics of technology Ethics of terraforming Ethics of uncertain sentience Meta-ethics Cognitivism Moral realism Ethical naturalism Ethical non-naturalism Ethical subjectivism Ideal observer theory Divine command theory Error theory Non-cognitivism Emotivism Expressivism Quasi-realism Universal prescriptivism Moral universalism Value monism – Value pluralism Moral relativism Moral nihilism Moral rationalism Ethical intuitionism Moral skepticism Concepts Autonomy Axiology Conscience Consent Equality Free will Good and evil Good Evil Happiness Ideal Immorality Justice Liberty Morality Norm Freedom Suffering or Pain Stewardship Sympathy Trust Value Virtue Wrong full index... Philosophers Laozi Socrates Plato Aristotle Diogenes Valluvar Cicero Confucius Augustine of Hippo Mencius Mozi Xunzi Thomas Aquinas Baruch Spinoza David Hume Immanuel Kant Georg W. F. Hegel Arthur Schopenhauer Jeremy Bentham John Stuart Mill Søren Kierkegaard Henry Sidgwick Friedrich Nietzsche G. E. Moore Karl Barth Paul Tillich Dietrich Bonhoeffer Philippa Foot John Rawls John Dewey Bernard Williams J. L. Mackie G. E. M. Anscombe William Frankena Alasdair MacIntyre R. M. Hare Peter Singer Derek Parfit Thomas Nagel Robert Merrihew Adams Charles Taylor Joxe Azurmendi Christine Korsgaard Martha Nussbaum more... Related articles Casuistry Christian ethics Descriptive ethics Ethics in religion Evolutionary ethics Feminist ethics History of ethics Ideology Islamic ethics Jewish ethics Moral psychology Philosophy of law Political philosophy Population ethics Social philosophy Category Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Applied_ethics&oldid=992461846" Categories: Applied ethics Ethics Hidden categories: Articles with short description Short description is different from Wikidata Use dmy dates from June 2013 Articles lacking in-text citations from September 2011 All articles lacking in-text citations Articles with Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy links Navigation menu Personal tools Not logged in Talk Contributions Create account Log in Namespaces Article Talk Variants Views Read Edit View history More Search Navigation Main page Contents Current events Random article About Wikipedia Contact us Donate Contribute Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes Upload file Tools What links here Related changes Upload file Special pages Permanent link Page information Cite this page Wikidata item Print/export Download as PDF Printable version In other projects Wikimedia Commons Languages العربية Asturianu বাংলা Башҡортса Български Català Čeština Deutsch Eesti Español Esperanto فارسی Français हिन्दी Íslenska Latina 日本語 Português Română Русский Slovenščina Српски / srpski Suomi Svenska Українська 中文 Edit links This page was last edited on 5 December 2020, at 11:29 (UTC). 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