Virtues and applied ethics

Abstract

Introduction Applied ethics is an emerging field in contemporary philosophy that seeks to apply moral theory to practical problems as they arise in contemporary society. These problems include: issues of international politics, such as what moral limits apply to us in the context of war and terrorism; issues of bioethics arising from advances in medical science that permit us to control the very architecture of life; issues of business ethics, such as the relation between the profit motive and social and environmental responsibility; issues arising from conflicts between conscience and professional roles and responsibilities; issues arising from information technology, such as the limits of privacy and the control of information; and so on. It will not be possible in this book to discuss all of these issues or any of the many others that might strike you as important, and nor will it be possible to discuss any one of them at great depth. However, in this chapter, I do want to illustrate how a virtue ethics approach might differ from the way the ethics of duty discusses practical issues and will do so with reference to the doctrine of the sanctity of life as this is used in bioethics. I will then discuss the way in which virtue ethics relates to professional roles, and complete the chapter by explicating a virtue relevant to many of the issues illustrated above: integrity.