Realms of Ethics
pilap07
appliedethics.pdf
Applied Ethics: Role and Function
While the philosophical is useful and necessary in terms of anchoring ethical discussions and deliberations or
evaluating decision-making, moving into the realm of application is important for our purposes. This
Learning Activity will help you explore the role of Applied Ethics and its functions.
Ethics itself further breaks down into categories:
• Meta ethics deals with the large, philosophical questions of ethics, including the meaning of moral terms (such as the word “good” or “evil”), what the essence of moral judgement is and where it comes from, and the apologetics of ethics, that is defending judgements and definitions.
• Normative ethics deals with questions of what ought to be the case in given scenarios, environments, or contexts. • Descriptive ethics deals with what is the case in/with a person, group, organization, or society. When Descriptive
ethics views sets side-by-side, this is comparative ethics. • Applied ethics is studying the use/application of ethics or actually setting parameters in specific realms or to
specific cases, for instance Bio-Ethics, Public Sector Ethics, Business Ethics, or this competency which is all about making decisions in leadership contexts.
Watch this video to gain insight from Peter Singer on the key points of Applied Ethics.
Peter Singer on Applied Ethics
