Applied Ethics

The essays in this book range over the fields of environmental ethics, business ethics, professional ethics, and bio-medical ethics. In each of the essays a significant question in the field of applied ethics is treated in a way that is methodologically revealing and provides some sense of new directions and preoccupations in the field. Among the questions discussed are: How should we conceive of the relations between theoretical ethics and practical ethics? What is the nature of responsible moral reasoning and deliberation? To what extent is rationality ultimately the same in morality and science? Is applied ethics inherently conventional or conservative in its deliberations and results? Can or should specialists in applied ethics claim moral expertise in relation to problems in a given domain? TO what extent is the personal history of persons working in the field opf applied ethics relevant to assessing their work? While the contributors appear to agree on the answers to some of these questions, there is spirited disagreement concerning others. Part I: Methodology, Critical Potential and Sceptical Doubts:.

1. Science, Ethics and Rationality.

Aristotle and Foucault on Science and Applied Ethics: Bent Flyvberg.

Scientific Knowledge, Discourse Ethics, and Consensus Formation in the Public Domain: Matthias Kettner.

Citizen Virtues for a Technological Order: Langdon Winner.

2. Moral Agreement.

Actual vs. Hypothetical: Alison Jaggar.

Rule Utilitarianism and Applied Ethics: Richard Sikora.

Moral Philosophy as Subversive Activity: James Rachels.

Trust and Distrust of Moral Theorists: Annette Baier.

Socratic Scepticism: Roger Wertheimer.

3. Moral Theorizing and Moral Practices.

Reflections on some of the Sources of Hypocrisy: Nancy Ann Davis.

Part II: General Issues Related to the Fields of Applied Ethics:.

4. Business Ethics.

How to Think Systematically about Business Ethics: Michael Philips.

Corporate Roles, Personal Virtues: An Aristotelian Approach to Business Ethics: Robert Solomon.

Moral Philosophy and Business Ethics: The Priority of the Political: Alistair Macleod.

Business Ethics and Stakeholder Analysis: Kenneth Goodpaster.

Philosophy and its Host: The Case of Business Ethics: Michael Yeo.

5. Environmental Ethics.

Environmental Ethics: Values in and Duties to the Natural World: Holmes Rolston III.

Ethics, Public Policy and Global Warming: Dale Jamieson.

Morality, Rationality and Politics: Solving the Greenhouse Dilemma: Peter Danielson.

6. Biomedical Ethics.

From Kantianism to Contextualism: The Rise and Fall of the Paradigm Theory in Bioethics: Earl Winkler.

Can Ethnography Save the Life of Medical Ethics?: Barry Hoffmaster.

Ethics Codes and Guidelines for Health Care Research: Can Respect for Autonomy be a Multi-cultural Principle?: Edward Keyserlingk.

The Functions and Limitations of a Professional Code of Ethics: Dale Beyerstein.

Jerrold R. Coombs is a founding member of the Association for Values Education and Research. He co-authored a number of reports of research on moral education and law-related education.

Earl Winkler is a member of the Advisory Council on Ethical Issues in Health Care for the British Columbia provincial government, a member of the Permanent Council on Ethical Issues for the Law Reform Commission of Canada, and a founding member of the Canadian Bioethics Society.

The first half of this book, representing both European and Anglo-American philosophical traditions, presents various general aspects of applied ethics. Central issues include: What is the nature of applied ethics? How is applied ethics related to science and technology? Can applied ethics be critically subversive and reformative of conventional morality? How useful are conceptions of rational consensus formation in social policy formation?

The papers in the second half of the book focus on the major fields of applied ethics - Business Ethics, Environmental Ethics and Biomedical Ethics. A primary issue that recurs in several of these essays concerns the relationship between ethical theory and moral practice. Other principal concerns are the general nature of business, or environmental ethics; the question of intrinsic values in nature; how to model corporate obligations so as to encompass legitimate forms of social responsibility; and what changes in general moral belief and dispositions of thought might improve our chances of dealing adequately with problems of large-scale environmental degradation. Contributors include Robert Solomon, Kenneth Goodpaster, Holmes Rolston III, Dale Jamieson, Barry Hoffmaster, Earl Winkler, Michael Philips, Alison Jaggar, James Rachels, Annette Baier, Roger Wertheimer and Matthias Kettner.