Applied ethics

« rule, while benefiting from the fact that everyone else is following it (see Universalism in ethics ).

The applied ethicist, like the theoretical moral philosopher, must find a way to deal with this problem, but for the appliedethicist, the problem is bound up with the need to employ what is sometimes called moral casuistry.

This ancientscience is not necessarily to be despised, for while a secondary meaning of the term ‘casuist' is indeed ‘sophist' or‘quibbler', it was not originally a term of abuse, but simply meant accepting in a theological context people's desireto work out the ‘right answer' to a difficult issue of conscience in a particular set of circumstances (see Casuistry ). 3 Method One method of reasoning employed in applied ethics may be compared to that of a designer who starts with a blueprint, but has to adapt it to the materials to hand and to the situations in which it is required.

There issome resemblance in this case to the Hegelian method of dialectical reasoning, as well as to the method ofreflective equilibrium favoured by such contemporary writers as Rawls ( 1971 ), in which intuitions in response to particular cases are measured against principles, causing them to be revised and their implications for particularcases again reappraised (see Moral justification §2 ).

According to this view of the subject, the method of applied ethics is neither purely deductive nor purely inductive.

For others, however, the deductive model is more powerful,and the question to be answered in any particular case is simply which (inviolable) principle it falls under.

Others again would favour the inductive model, according to which, by clearly seeing what is right in particular cases, itbecomes possible to formulate a general principle encompassing these and other particular judgments (seeUniversalism in ethics §3 ).

In general, discussion of ethical theories in applied ethics aims to pursue, in the direction of the highest degree of generality and abstraction, the question of what humans should do.

In practice, discussionof theories is often confined to their implications for the resolution of particular problems, since applied ethicscharacteristically seeks to answer the broad question with a much greater degree of particularity.

4 Critics and opponents In seeking answers to practical problems, applied ethics runs counter to much recent philosophy.

For the view that prevailed during the dominance of empiricism and positivism (the greater part of the twentiethcentury) is that philosophy can have nothing to say about pressing practical problems.

This view is grounded in twoimportant philosophical arguments: (a) Hume's objection to arguments that seek to derive an ‘ought' from an ‘is'(see Hume, D.

§4 ; Logic of ethical discourse §2-4 ); and (b) Moore's argument that to identify moral characteristics with ‘natural' or empirical ones is to commit a ‘naturalistic fallacy' (see Moore, G.E.

§1 ; Naturalism in ethics §3 ).

Both of these arguments must be resisted if applied ethics is to succeed in closing the gap between factual descriptionsof situations and moral judgments, and both may partially at least be answered by insisting that some facts ‘speakfor themselves' - torture, child-murder, genocide, for example.

The argument that facts and values are to be keptapart is, however, less of an obstacle to philosophers outside the English-speaking world; the notion of praxis, forexample, is familiar from various continental traditions, including Marxism, the Frankfurt School, and the philosophyof Habermas (see Theory and practice §3 ); while the idea of the philosopher as engagé - as concerned with playing a part in the world - is an important part of French existentialist thought, made familiar in the works of Sartre.These sources have, however, produced a different kind of challenge to the notion of applied ethics as an impartialand essentially reason-based approach to ethical issues in society.

Objections to the conception of universal moralnorms and to foundationalist procedures in reasoning (the ‘postmodernist' challenge) are associated with recentdevelopments in Marxist theory, certain feminist approaches to ethics and epistemology, and the deconstructionistmovement - schools of thought which may also adopt an analysis of power-structures in society incompatible withbelief in individual freedom of action (see Feminism and psychoanalysis ; Deconstruction ).

Supporters of these theoretical positions often make strong claims for the recognition of rights, but this is probably better seen asexploitation of the preconceptions of their opponents, rather than as recognition of universal ethical concepts andhuman freedom.

Other critiques of traditional ethics may, however, be more sympathetic to applied ethics.

On thebasis of research revealing the contextuality of many women's responses to ethical dilemmas, some feminist writers,most prominently Carol Gilligan ( 1982 ), have argued that women in general are likely to adopt an ethic of care and responsibility to particular others rather than an abstract morality of principles, rights or justice (see Feminist ethics §1).

Such an approach may well seem better adapted to the resolution of ‘hard cases' in, for example, health careor social work (see Nursing ethics ).

Similarly, the approach known as ‘virtue ethics', with its emphasis on seeking the good in particular situations, may seem well adapted to applied ethics, even if its proponents sometimes appearto view it in opposition, regarding their own stand as more objective, and wrongly equating applied ethics withsubjectivism and relativism (see Virtue ethics ).

Other stereotypes to be rejected are political: applied ethics has typically been associated with vegetarianism, pacifism, feminism and environmentalism.

It should be noted, however,that it also includes criticism and evaluation of these positions: defences of meat-eating or animal experiments,scepticism about feminism, and resistance to new ‘ecological ethics' are to be found alongside more orthodoxpublications on library shelves.

There is nothing wrong with variety of opinion so long as this is within a broadethical framework, for it is of the essence of applied philosophy in general to approach individual issues in their ownright and not as part of an ideological package-deal.

Applied ethics, then, is part of a whole view of the humancondition and takes a broad view of ethical decision-making.

Essentially, this is ethical decision-making seen aspractical policy that consciously recognizes the constraints of moral norms, rights and ethical principles capable ofcommanding universal respect.

Where this is accepted, the object of applied ethics is plain: it is to gain clearerperceptions of right and wrong, with a view to embodying these insights in manners and institutions.

5 Historical context The inception of applied philosophy could well be said to coincide with that of the Western philosophical tradition as a whole, for the first of the early Greek philosophers, Thales ( c.585 BC), is recorded as having combined his speculative philosophical interests with economic acumen and an interest in legal and political reform.

Laterschools of philosophy in ancient times - Pythagoreans, Epicureans, Stoics - offered their followers principles forliving and even indeed distinctive codes of practice.

For both Plato and Aristotle, ethical and political questionswere posed in terms of such notions as the good for man, the ultimate good, or what is good in itself and for itsown sake (see Plato §16 ; Aristotle §21 ).

Their assumption was that this inquiry led both to a way of life for the individual, and to a conception of the good society.

They disagreed about whether this would lead an individualnecessarily to live according to the ethical insight thus gained, Aristotle, unlike Plato in his earlier writings, allowing. »