Oct 1, 1984 — OXFORD JOURNALS OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS DOES APPLIED ETHICS REST ON A MISTAKE? Author(s): Alasdair MacIntyre Source: The Monist, Vol. 67, No. 4, Ethics and the Modern World (OCTOBER, 1984), pp. 498-513 Published by: Oxford University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27902885 Accessed: 22-06-2015 19:22 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/ info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Oxford University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Monist. STOR http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 128.59.153.38 on Mon, 22 Jun 2015 19:22:18 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions DOES APPLIED ETHICS REST ON A MISTAKE? 'Applied ethics', as that expression is now used, is a single rubric for a large range of different theoretical and practical activities. Such rubrics function partly as a protective device both within the academic community and outside it; a name of this kind suggests not just a discipline, but a par- ticular type of discipline. In the case of 'applied ethics' the suggestive power of the name derives from a particular conception of the relationship of ethics to what goes on under the rubric of 'applied ethics'. Not everyone who conducts activities under that rubric owes allegiance to this conception and there are doubtless some who would repudiate it as strongly as I do. But it is that dominant conception from which most work in this area derives or aspires to derive its philosophical legitimacy. What is that conception? Ethics as such, on this dominant view, has as its subject-matter morali- ty as such. Morality as such imposes requirements upon human individuals qua human individuals. It has the function of regulating the relationships of anyone whatsoever with anyone else. It thus moves at a level of abstraction and generality which detaches its concerns and its formulations from all social particularity. Being concerned with persons qua persons its formula- tions make no reference to particular social roles or institutional forms. It is not however without explicit social content. Society is understood as an arena of rival and competing interests and what morality supplies are rules which from a neutral and impartial point of view set constraints upon how these interests may be pursued. The rules are neutral and impartial in that they are such that any rational person who had detached him or herself from the distorting causal influence of his or her interests would assent to them. It follows that in the formulation of such rules only concepts available to rational persons as such may be employed: either concepts whose application is involved in any evaluation whatsoever of discourse as rational concepts such as those of consistency, truth, universality, necessi- ty and the like-or concepts which specify either universal or near universal features of desired states of affairs ("being found pleasant" is one frequent candidate for this status) or universal or near universal objects of desire ("liberty to get what one wants" might be claimed to be such a concept). Morality as such thus concerns what is true of everyone and anyone in their capacity as rational persons. The requirement of agreement by rational persons removes from the realm of morality one area that has been sometimes thought to be central to it. Our social order is not only an arena This content downloaded from 128.59.153.38 on Mon, 22 Jun 2015 19:22:18 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions DOES APPLIED ETHICS REST ON A MISTAKE? for competing interests; it is also one for competing views, religious and nonreligious, as to the best way for human beings to live. On the dominant view it is held that either because rational agreement on the nature of the good life for human beings cannot be reached or just because as a matter of fact it has not been reached or because it is a key part of the freedom of each individual to choose whatever he or she takes to be the best life for him or herself, the rules that constitute morality must be neutral between alter- native and conflicting views of the good for human beings. Pluralism about the good is to coexist with rational agreement on the rules of morality. There are of course many versions of this dominant view of morality: Kantian, utilitarian, contractarian, Kantian-cum-utilitarian, Kantian-cum- contractarian and so on. But the adherents of all such views agree tempting to specify universally binding principles or rules whose universali- ty has the scope of humanity itself. Detachment from and disinterestedness towards all social particularity and positivity is thus a defining mark of morality. It follows that morality can be formulated and understood in- dependently of any considerations which arise from highly specific forms of social structure. Ignorance of sociology and history will not be a defect in the student of morality as such. But what then of those areas of human life in which the regulation of conduct requires the framing of rules which specify how institutionalised relationships are to be conducted? Examples are the contemporary and shifting relationships of physician, nurse and pa- tient, of lawyer, client and judge, of elected public officials to civil servants and to the public. The answer, according to the dominant standpoint, is that the rules of morality as such have to be applied to this kind of socially and institutionally specific subject-matter to yield socially and institutional- ly specific rules. The academic discipline of ethics as such, which enquires into the nature of morality as such, has to be supplemented by the discipline of applied ethics. Applied ethics derives its conclusions from sets of premises in which conclusions drawn from ethics are conjoined to factual finding about some specific social and intellectual area. Its rational claims upon our attention depend first then upon the justifiability of the account of morality which it presupposes; secondly, upon the warranted character of its account of the structures of medical or legal or political or military or business institutional and social relationships; and thirdly, upon its ability to derive its conclusions rationally from its premises. It is upon the first and third of these that I shall focus attention. I 499 This content downloaded from 128.59.153.38 on Mon, 22 Jun 2015 19:22:18 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions at- The central requirement of the dominant conception of ethics is then that the rules of morality are such as any rational agent would agree to. But 500 ALASDAIR MACINTYRE it is an equally notable fact about the moral philosophers who share this conception of ethics that they are in fact unable to agree either upon the precise content of the rules of morality or upon the appropriate way in which such rules are to be rationally justified. Kantians or post-Kantians, utilitarians of different schools, contractarians and the various mixtures of these remain intractably at odds with one another. And in the extent of both ranges of disagreement they mirror the dominant trends of that liberal culture of which they are the articulate spokesmen. Of course in the culture at large the range of disagreements on both counts is even wider, for all the dissenters from the dominant point of view, theological and nontheological, also have to be counted in. If then, in spite of the dominant requirement of rational agreement, disagreement on what the rules of morality actually are is rampant and in the foreseeable future unresolvable and if applied ethics is in fact an application to cases falling within particular social spheres of what are taken to be the rules of morali- ty, then we should expect to find that the disagreements over moral rules reproduce themselves within applied ethics. Doubtless to some extent and on some issues they do: for example, in many debates over abortion. But in an interestingly high proportion of examples either large disagreement on what the rules of morality are turns out to be compatible with large agree- ment on issues within the domain of applied ethics or, where there is disagreement within that domain between contending parties, it does not reproduce the disagreements between them on the fundamental rules of morality. Since the former type of example is the more striking, let me discuss one particular report of such a combination of disagreements and agreements. Commenting on the work of the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research, Stephen Toulmin, who was a staff member for that commission, has described how the commissioners found it relatively easy to reach agree- ment, or in a minority of intractable cases at least local and isolable disagreement, on particular concrete issues raised by specific difficult types of case, but continued to have fundamental and radical disagreements on matters of moral principle, on what the rules of morality actually are, even although each of them individually aspired to justify his or her views on the concrete issues by appeal to his or her principles.¹ This type of situation is recurrent within applied ethics and there are three possible explanations for it. The first is that rival and conflicting moral principles do, when applied within applied ethics, surprisingly and unexpectedly yield the same answers. But were this to be true more than very occasionally, grave doubt would be cast on whether the principles or This content downloaded from 128.59.153.38 on Mon, 22 Jun 2015 19:22:18 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions DOES APPLIED ETHICS REST ON A MISTAKE? rules being invoked really were in conflict with each other. And since we do seem to have independently adequate grounds for holding that the prin- ciples and rules in question are rival and conflicting, we do have grounds for rejecting this explanation. The discrepancy between the agreements on the issues that fall to applied ethics and the disagreements over the principles and rules which constitute morality is just as radical and disturbing as it ap- pears to be. 501 The second and third types of explanation agree on one central conten- tion: that in such cases the various parties involved in the disagreements at one level and the agreements at another are not in fact applying the moral principles or rules about which they disagree. One possible explanation, which is, I take it, Toulmin's own in the case of the National Commission, is that a very different type of moral reasoning is at work-one in which the fundamental appeal is not to rules, but to cases. On this view, on occasions on which this explanation holds, the participants are behaving rationally in reaching their agreements within applied ethics, but may misrepresent to themselves the nature of their own moral reasoning. A third possible ex- planation is of a different order. It is that in some such cases at least-although not necessarily of course in that of the National Commis- sion there is indeed a misrepresentation by the participants to themselves and to others of how agreement is being reached, but that a central feature of the misrepresentation is that what is in fact a nonrational social transac- tion is being presented as though it were a process of rational argument. I shall want to suggest that in some at least, although certainly not in all of the cases falling under the rubric of ‘applied ethics', this third type of ex- planation needs to be seriously considered. II One reason for this last suggestion is that it seems clear that in applied ethics the rules or principles which on the dominant conception constitute morality cannot be being applied in the way that is commonly supposed. For the relationship between a rule and its applications cannot be what on the dominant view it is taken to be; that is, it cannot be the case that we can first and independently comprehend the rules of morality as such and then only secondly enquire as to their application in particular specialized social spheres. For, were this to be the case, the rules of morality as such would be effectively contentless. On the dominant view, for example, we are first and independently to frame a rule or rules about truth-telling and honesty in general and then only secondly need to enquire how it is, or they are to be applied in such relationships as those of physician to patient or lawyer in This content downloaded from 128.59.153.38 on Mon, 22 Jun 2015 19:22:18 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Oct 7, 1996 — This fully revised and updated edition of Nicholas Bunnin and E.P. Tsui-James’ popular introductory philosophy textbook brings together specially-commissioned chapters from a prestigious team of scholars writing on each of the key areas, figures and movements in philosophy.

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Jun 1, 2022 — Originally published in 1986, this book examines the extent to which existing ethical theory can provide an adequate framework for the resolution of practical moral issues. The contributors, all leading moral philosophers, provide an authoritative and comprehensive account of developments in ethical theory, with emphasis on issues in applied ethics. They explain the dominant ethical theories, survey major field of applied ethics and speculate about the future of ethics.

Oct 1, 2021 — Any professor using a popular professional ethics textbook in their class is likely secularizing the moral thinking of their students. To help you understand why that is the case, I...

Jul 29, 2021 — Before we can resolve or avoid an ethical problem, we need to understand what makes something ethical. Practical and Professional Ethics: Key Concepts introduces us to a series of real cases where the stakes can be high, the situations complex, and the ethical issues often difficult to see. Drawing on examples from medicine, law, science, and engineering, it offers a practical approach to thinking critically about the ethical problems that occur in our lives and professions, teaching us how to:§ focus on the ethical aspects of any situation§ distinguish between different kinds of ethical problems § tailor our response to the kind of problem we face§ construct arguments we can plausibly attribute to those involved§ identify the role of power, discretion and moral blindnessBy guiding us through the concepts, issues and skills at play when we face an ethical problem, we learn how to find a solution. Ideal for students or professionals, this book provides the grounding required to become a more complex moral thinker, a quality that can be applied in a number of fields and jobs.

Jul 15, 2021 — Stoner and Swartwood's Doing Practical Ethics is the first book to offer a framework for acquiring the component skills required to philosophize about applied ethics. The book accomplishes this by providing clear Explanations and models of basic argument and critical thinking skills, Demonstration Exercises with solutions that provide clear and immediate feedback, and further Practice Exercises for honing skills. This skill-focused textbook can be used in any intro to ethics or intro to contemporary moral problems course. It is equally useful for any applied ethics course, such as Bioethics, Business Ethics, and Environmental Ethics. It teaches students, through practice, how to analyze, evaluate, andconstruct moral arguments. Most instructors would also assign a reader or a set of custom readings.

Jan 2, 2018 — Ethics, Aesthetics and Practical Philosophy John Haldane Abstract The development of interest among academic philosophers in the aesthetics of everyday life is somewhat analogous to the broader development in moral philosophy of 'applied' or practical ethics. This fact is sometimes mentioned but rarely examined and it may be useful, therefore, explore something of the course and causes of these two developments, in part better to understand them, but also to note blindspots and limitations in certain ways of thinking. In each case (though in different ways) these limitations are related to ignorance of past theory and practice. Exploring the parallels will also serve as a basis for suggesting how the two lines may now be brought together in a form of practical philosophy. I English-language moral philosophy in the broadly analytic mode might be said to have had two beginnings: both in Cambridge and in close succession. The first was with Sidgwick's Method of Ethics which John Rawls praised as the first truly academic work in moral philosophy (in English), modern both in its methods and in the spirit of its approach. ... It undertakes to provide a systematic 1 comparative study of moral conceptions ... 1 For Sidgwick, Ethics was moral theory, i.e., the attempt to find a systematic account of the justification of first order moral judgements, what Kant and Mill had both termed the foundations of morality. Within two years of the posthumous publication of its 6th edition, however, moral philosophy began a second new phase with the appearance of G.E. Moore's Principia Ethica in which attention was shifted from justification to semantic analysis: the question, how good is to be defined, is the most fundamental question in all Ethics the main object of Ethics, as a systematic science, is to give correct reasons for thinking that this or that is good; [but] unless this question be answered, such reasons cannot be given 2 While Sidgwick has since been recovered by Rawls, Derek Parfit, Peter Singer and others, he, and moral theory, were eclipsed for over half a century by the rapid rise and expansion of metaethics deriving from Moore's enquiry into the meaning of the predicate ‘good’. Insofar as moral theorizing continued to be done it also tended to be abstract, considering the merits of rival accounts of moral justification by reference to general principles of one kind or another, and its use of first order examples was limited and unimaginative. It was also unreflective of the possibility that its appeal to them was naïve in failing to consider that how they were to be described might itself raise philosophical questions about, on the one hand contextual significance and on the other theory-ladenness. Both issues came to be pressed by Alasdair MacIntyre, the first in his Short History of Ethics: 2 Moral philosophy is often written as though the history of the subject were only of secondary and incidental importance. This attitude seems to be the outcome of a belief that moral concepts can be examined and understood apart from their history. Some philosophers have even written as if moral concepts were a timeless, limited, unchanging, determinate species of concept, necessarily having the same features throughout their history ... In fact, of course, moral concepts change as social life changes. I deliberately do not write 'because social life changes,' for this might suggest that social life is one thing, morality another, and that there is merely an external, contingent causal relationship between them. This is obviously false. Moral concepts are embodied in and are partially constitutive of forms of social life.³ Dissatisfaction with the way in which moral philosophy was proceeding, disengaged from complex ethical, social and cultural issues of sorts that by the 1960s were challenging Western societies' conventional values, principles and practices, led some to begin to think about how philosophical ethics could help address questions that had become urgent in everyday life. Thus, began the practical turn. Here it is important, however, to distinguish two factors. First, awareness of, and often personal (non-academic) engagement with ethical controversies, and the feeling that philosophy ought to have something to contribute to these; and second, views about the ways in which it could and should do so. The latter is more than a matter of methodology for it bears on the nature of philosophy itself. The favoured move involved the idea of applied philosophy understood in terms of preexisting distinctions in other fields. This is clearly expressed in an essay by Leslie 3 Stevenson, contemporaneous with the practical turn in moral philosophy which may also have been one of the first occurrences, certainly as a title, of the expression 'Applied Philosophy'. He writes: I want to suggest that, although the popular demand for quick or simple answers is misconceived, there is a clear and important sense in which philosophy can be relevant to "the important questions of everyday life". I also want to suggest how, in these days [1970] of burgeoning universities, the vital need for the application of philosophy can be better met. That phrase, “the application of philosophy', already suggests the basis of my approach, namely a distinction between pure philosophy and applied philosophy, analogous in some ways to that between pure and applied mathematics, and in other ways to that between science and technology. . . . why should there not be a somewhat loosely defined discipline of applied philosophy, with a fuzzy borderline with pure philosophy on one side, and branching out into multifarious everyday problems on the other? 4 Two related points should be noted: First, the suggestion is presented as if there were not already a history of philosophical engagement with everyday issues, when in fact this was common from antiquity through until the nineteenth century: from Socrates to Mill. Indeed, it was the rise in the early twentieth century of a certain view of philosophy as disengaged conceptual and logical analysis, to which Moore's Principia gave encouragement, which broke that tradition, thereby leading to feelings mentioned above and to the complaint which Stevenson is addressing. 4 Second, the response presupposes a conception of the relation of philosophical reflection to everyday issues that retains, in the contrast between the pure and the applied, a notion of what philosophy primarily is that is questionable, arguably problematic and which constrains the understanding of how it might relate to everyday issues. To find an alternative we need only look to the earlier history of engagement and to the distinction drawn there between speculative or theoretical, and practical philosophy. That has its first conscious application in the work of Aristotle and it is in relation to this that the earliest uses of the expression ‘practical philosophy' occur. In the preface to his Commentary on Aristotle's Politics (c. 1270) Aquinas writes Since the whole that is the political community is subject to the judgment of reason, it was necessary for a complete philosophy to give instruction about the political community, instruction called politics or political science [civilis scientia]. We can understand what kind of science this is. For we distinguish practical from theoretical sciences in that the latter are directed only to the knowledge of truth, while the former are directed to action. Therefore, politics is necessarily included in practical philosophy [sub practica philosophia] since the political community is a whole, and human reason both knows it and acts regarding it.5 The theoretical/practical distinction is not merely an alternative classification to the pure/applied one; rather it involves a different way of thinking about how thought and practice are related. For the latter, philosophy's essential ('pure') work is complete in the formulation of theories, and the 5

Nov 15, 2016 — Examining the theoretical and empirical status of applied ethics, this volume demonstrates how a pluralistic and democratic society can deal with ethical issues in the light of its moral conscience. The volume first sets the stage for a conception of applied ethics as applications of transnational civil ethics, based both on a discourse theory of knowledge (Apel, Habermas), and on an activities and capabilities approach (Aristotle, Sen). It then examines how applied ethics relates to important theoretical discussions in philosophy such as constructivism, virtue ethics, hermeneutic and deliberative theory. The contributors discuss applied ethics in light of globalization and identify recurring dilemmas as well as the problem of universal norms. They close by considering two aspects of the institutional point of view - republicanism, and contractarianism and constitutional economics.

Oct 7, 2016 — The phrase “applied moral philosophy” might naturally be understood as the application of general moral principles to descriptions of particular situations in order to derive conclusions about what o...