Applied Ethics

by

Thomas Søbirk Petersen, Jesper Ryberg

• LAST REVIEWED: 25 February 2025
• LAST MODIFIED: 20 March 2025
• DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195396577-0006

Introduction

Applied ethics, also called practical ethics, is a branch of ethics devoted to the treatment of moral problems, practices, and policies in personal life, professions, technology, and government. In contrast to traditional ethical theory—concerned with purely theoretical problems such as, for example, the development of a general criterion of rightness—applied ethics takes its point of departure in practical normative challenges. Along with general overviews and journals, nine central branches of applied ethics are added, with six to eight references in connection to each branch. It should be noted that these branches constitute only a selection among the plethora of disciplines within applied ethics. Moreover, some overlap is found among the different areas.

Textbooks

A number of textbooks exist within applied ethics. But as the field is always expanding and at the same time becoming increasingly specialized, it is very difficult to give a fair overview of the most important textbooks within applied ethics. However, undoubtedly some of the most influential works are Singer 2011 and Singer 2011 on issues like animal ethics, abortion, and environmental ethics and Kamm 2013 on the ethics of abortion, assisted dying, human enhancement, and health and equality. A number of textbooks cover a wide variety of subjects within applied ethics, for example, Oderberg 2000, and Singer 2011. Besides these, there exist textbooks that have a more narrow scope, such as Broom 2012 on climate change, Bowie 2017 on business ethics, Sumner 2004 on free speech and pornography, Frowe 2023 on the ethics of war and peace, and Mason 2022 on ethical perspectives on pornography, sex work, sexual harassment, and reproductive rights.

• Bowie, Norman. Business Ethics: A Kantian Perspective. 2d ed. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press 2017.

  DOI: 10.1017/9781316343210

  Concise and clearly written introduction to several key subjects within business ethics. Contains topics such as “the right purpose of a business,” “the internal and external regulation of businesses,” and “the use of ethical codes within businesses.”

• Broom, John. Climate Matters: Ethics in a Warming World. New York: Norton, 2012.

  Very clearly written book in which the author not only presents an overview of climate science but also argues how we as individuals or as a political collective should solve the problems of global warming.

• Frowe, Helen. The Ethics of War and Peace. 3d ed. New York: Routledge, 2023.

  A fine introduction to some central ethics challenges in connection with war and warfare. For example, on topics such as when national defense of an aggressor is just, the moral status of combatants, jus ad bellum, jus in bello and jus post bellum, and the ethics of the use of weapons such as nuclear weapons, the use of poison, and biochemical weapons.

• Kamm, Francis. Bioethical Prescriptions. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013.

  DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199971985.001.0001

  A well-elaborated collection on applied ethics within mainly bioethics. The primary topics are on abortion, assisted dying, brain death, allocation of scare resources in health care, discrimination against the disabled, and experimentation on human embryos.

• Mason, Eli. Feminist Philosophy. New York. Routledge, 2022.

  A very readable introduction to feminist issues. Besides presenting a definition of feminism and some of the reasons to be engaged in feminist thinking, the monograph presents and critically discusses topics such as reproductive rights, the use and making of pornography, the involvement in sex work, everyday sexism, and sexual harassment.

• Oderberg, David S. Applied Ethics: A Non-consequentialist Approach. Oxford: Blackwell, 2000.

  This volume is a good example of a virtue theory approach to applied ethics. An approach that is less represented in the literature in comparison with the usual utilitarian- or deontological-based literature in applied ethics. In a clear and systematic manner, it treats the following subjects: abortion, animals, euthanasia, capital punishment, and war.

• Singer, Peter. Practical Ethics. 3d ed. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2011.

  DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511975950

  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. In this latter edition all chapters have been revised and updated and a new chapter has been added on climate ethics.

• Sumner, L. W. The Hateful and the Obscene: Studies in the Limits of Free Expression. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004.

  DOI: 10.3138/9781442681439

  From a mainly utilitarian perspective, the focus of this book is the ethical perspectives of free speech and pornography. Some legal cases are discussed at length, and the ethical framework of John Stuart Mill’s harm principle is used to focus the discussion.