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Applied ethics is the practical aspect ofmoral considerations. It isethics with respect to real-world actions and their moral considerations in private and public life, the professions, health, technology, law, and leadership.[1] For example,bioethics is concerned with identifying the best approach to moral issues in the life sciences, such aseuthanasia, 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 the duties ofwhistleblowers to the public and 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 ofmoral dilemmas can take many different forms but one of the most influential and most widely utilised approaches inbioethics and health care ethics is the four-principle approach developed byTom Beauchamp andJames Childress.[9] The four-principle approach, commonly termedprinciplism, entails consideration and application of fourprima facie ethical principles:autonomy,non-maleficence,beneficence, andjustice.
Applied ethics is distinguished fromnormative ethics, which concerns standards for right and wrong behavior, and frommeta-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 these normative ethical theories:
Normative ethical theories can clash when trying to resolve real-world ethical dilemmas. One approach attempting to overcome the divide between consequentialism and deontology iscase-based reasoning, also known ascasuistry. 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 andStephen Toulmin (The Abuse of Casuistry, 1988), challenge the traditionalparadigm 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 onideology ortheory. 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.
Applied ethics was later distinguished from the nascentapplied epistemology, which is also under the umbrella ofapplied philosophy. While the former was concerned with the practical application of moral considerations, the latter focuses on the application of epistemology in solving practical problems.[14]
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