Applied ethics #
- Bioethics, medical ethics, environmental, animal, business, political, sexual, population…
Why study applied ethics?
- Philosophers are supposed to have a comparative advantage in argument and analysis
- Ethics is inherently something to apply
Philosphy
- What is involved in doing philosophy well?
- Pursue the truth
- Better: present good reasons for thinking one has got things right
- How good to the reasons have to be?
- Philosophy isn’t supposed to be a game where different sides choose their favorite argument
- Supposed to avoid idealogical advocacy
Applied ethics and philosophy
- Does applied ethics measure up?
- People disagree; there are too many areas characterized by reasonable pluralism
So what do we do?
- Rational, reasoned discussion
- But is that doing philosophy?
Other aims
- Can simply clarify what the different arguments are and the problems they encounter
- Sometimes there could be genuinely philosophical argument that has direct implications for an applied issue
Some advice for the semester
- We need to watch out for the pretense of applied ethics
- Be skeptical of the opinions that the readings present
- Be careful that we don’t mask private advocacy with philosophy