Nature and Scope of Applied Ethics

Dr. Sarita Kar

 Salient Points

Applied Ethics is a new discipline

Inadequacy of theoretical ethics to solve the practical problems

 Why Applied Ethics?

Industrial Development

Development in Science and Technology

Moral Problems in Professional Life

Morality is Anthropocentric

Struggle for a sustainable world

 Two Features of Applied Ethics

The issue need to be controversial

It must be a distinctly moral issue

 Nature of Applied Ethics
Applied Ethics is the application of ethical theories

There should be one ethical theory or some ethical theories

which can solve the practical problems

Non Philosophers supply the problem and philosophers apply the

theory

Professional ethics as a sub-discipline of Applied Ethics need

some ethical principle to apply in various profession

James M Brown
 Classification of Applied Ethics

Business Ethics – CSR, deceptive advertising, insider trading,

employee rights, job discrimination, etc

Bio-Ethics – issue related to birth and death, genetic manipulation

of fetus, human cloning, moral enhancement, etc

Environmental Ethics – rights of animals, morality of animal

experimentation, pollution control, our obligation for future

generation, etc
Thank You