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An applied ethics approach to the examination of moral dilemmas can take many different forms but one of the most influential and most widely utilised approaches in bioethics and health care ethics is the four-principle approach developed by Tom Beauchamp and James Childress.
Applied ethics, the application of normative ethical theories—i.e., philosophical theories regarding criteria for determining what is morally right or wrong, good or bad—to practical problems. (Read Peter Singer’s Britannica entry on ethics.)
By contrasting applied ethics with the other branches, one can get a better understanding what exactly applied ethics is about. The three branches are metaethics, normative ethics (sometimes referred to as ethical theory), and applied ethics. Metaethics deals with whether morality exists.
Applied ethics, also called practical ethics, is the application of ethics to real-world problems. Practical ethics attempts to answer the question of how people should act in specific situations. For example, is it ethical for a business owner to bluff during negotiations with another company?
A remarkably lucid and readable introduction to applied ethics. It covers a wide range of areas such as abortion, animal ethics, civil disobedience, environmental ethics, and our obligations to refugees and world hunger. The book has been reprinted several times, including a 2011 third edition.
"Applied ethics" is also used more broadly to refer to any use of philosophical methods critically to examine practical moral decisions and to treat moral problems, practices, and policies in the professions, technology, government, and the like.
