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In contrast, applied ethics is just that – applied. It seeks practical conclusions about the right thing to do and to marshal reasons for doing it. It is interested in identifying duties, rights, and practical principles for guid-
ing guiding action. In applied ethics, we work within ethics. We engage ethical situations and issues, directly. We do not step outside and observe ethics as a human phenomenon. To the contrary, we are actors who do ethics
with a dominant practical interest. We argue for the application of certain ethical principles in controversial cases. In applied ethics, we ask such questions as, “did I do the wrong thing when I refused to give money to
famine relief?” or “is euthanasia morally justifiable if the dying person is in extreme pain?” Theories in applied ethics are not abstract theories focused on what “good” or “right” means, or why humans have constructed ethical systems.
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We have already mentioned examples of applied theories, such as utilitarianism, which takes the good as the fundamental aspect of ethics. It declares that the greatest good is the greatest amount of happiness for all.
On this basis, utilitarianism takes a wide array of positions on the moral issues of the day. To be sure, any applied theory such as utilitarianism contains philosophical reflections on the meaning of “good” and the objectivity of ethics. But the overwhelming intent of applied theories is practical. Given this general understanding of the philosophical/applied distinction, we can now be more specific about the area that we are most concerned with in this book – applied ethics. As mentioned, applied ethics has two divisions, general and specific: (1) normative ethics in general, which deals with general theories about what things are valuable, good, and right, what principles should belong to our general morality, and how
they apply to our decisions and actions; (2) framework ethics: the development, critique, and application of specific frameworks of principles, such as codes of ethics for the professions. Frameworks are sets of related principles that together govern an entire type of activity, e.g. the code of ethics for physicians or journalists. Framework ethics, of course, does not stand on its own. Applied ethics engages in both normative and framework eth-
ics ethics to study the practice of professions to help nurses, public servants, journalists, and others. Part of the analysis of these frameworks is to examine whether they are consistent with the more general theories of normative ethics, such as utilitarianism.
Framework ethics asks about the validity, coherence, interpretation, and adequacy of the framework, as well as the validity of specific principles. For example, in journalism we can question whether the existing professional
code of ethics is adequate for changes happening in journalism, where citizen journalists become increasingly important. Or we can question a specific principle such as the doctrine of news objectivity. Framework ethics is focused not on the justification of the framework of principles, but on how the principles apply to situations to yield judgments about what to do. For example, if we accept objectivity as a principle of news reporting, what does it entail for the coverage of my country’s military actions? The professions use framework ethics to question their principles and to study the dilemmas and tough “judgment-calls” specific to their domains. For example, how much information should a doctor provide a seriously ill patient about their disease? How should a health organization inform female patients that their breast cancer tests were botched by pathologists? What is “informed consent” in a business contract? If a financial adviser owns stock in a company, should he promote that company to clients?