Applied philosophy
The topic covers a broad spectrum of issues in environment, medicine, science, engineering, policy, law, politics, economics and education.
[17] Despite the audience conception not always requiring background knowledge of the given audience, it is prudent for philosophers who are engaging with specific scientific disciplines to be well read on the empirical facts of those disciplines the philosopher addresses, thus re-iterating the value of being empirically informed with the facts, especially when engaging with interdisciplinary studies of philosophy with some other subject.
[21] Applied ethics first gained mainstream popularity in 1967, as many professions such as law, medicine and engineering were profoundly affected by social issues and injustices at the time.
For example, various environmental movements sparked political conversations about humanities relationship to the natural world, which led to the development of important philosophical arguments against anthropocentrism.
One possible methodology involves the application of moral principles and theories to particular issues in applied ethics, and is known as the top-down model of philosophical analysis.
[18] The next step is articulating the relevant empirical facts of a situation to better understand how these principles should be applied in that particular context, which then determines the moral permissibility of an action.
However, there is universal disagreement over which principles this definitive set consists of, if any, creating issues for a conception of applied ethics using the top-down model.
[20] One theory proposed by Friedman (2008) describes the sole responsibility of a CEO (Chief Executive Officer) being profit maximization through their business abilities and knowledge.
[23] Freeman (1998) presents a competing theory of corporate social responsibility by appealing to pre-theoretical commitments about the moral significance of assessing who an action affects and how.
[20] Thomson (1971) revolutionized philosophical understanding of issues in the abortion debate, by questioning the widespread belief that because a fetus is a person, that it is morally wrong to kill them.
[28] She uses the violinist thought experiment to show that even if a fetus is a person, their right to life is not absolute, and therefore provided non-theistic and rational justification for the moral permissibility of abortion under certain conditions.
[28] Frances Kamm (1992) takes a deontological approach in order to expand on Thomson's argument, where she argues that factors such as third-party intervention and morally responsible creation support its permissibility.
[22] The practical goals of environmental ethics are to provide a moral grounds for social policies aimed at protecting the environment and remedying its degradation.
[22] Feminism has an important relationship to environmental ethics where, as King (1989) argues, human exploitation of nature can be seen as a manifestation and extension of the oppression of women.
Some examples include philosophical inquiry into family-based immigration policies, understanding the conceptual structure of civil disobedience, and discussing the bounds of prosecutorial discretion in domestic violence cases.
For example, liberal feminist theorising, whose main concerns are protecting and enhancing women's political rights and personal autonomy, has consistently used conceptual activism to further their aims.
[36] As a result, there might be different (and more preferable) methods for acquiring knowledge depending on whose values guide one's orientation in life or what goals direct their pursuit of truth.
[37] And, while this social and consequentialist orientation has great value, applied epistemology also encompasses other normative orientations—like deontology, utilitarianism, and virtue ethics, amongst others—and explores individualistic questions of practical epistemic concerns.
Feminist epistemology studies how gendered practices and norms contribute to social oppression—including, but not limited to the enforcement of heteropatriarchy, racism, ableism, and classism—and proposes ways for agents to revise them in light of this.
But this branch of epistemology is also greatly relevant since, to be effective activists, Wylie (2001) stresses that it is necessary “to understand the conditions that disadvantage women with as much empirical accuracy and explanatory power as possible.”[40] A demonstration of this necessity is that, since the Black and lesbian feminist theorizing of the 1980s, it is not effective anymore for feminists to investigate the conceptions and phenomena related to gender without the concept of intersectionality: which does not only make visible how the lived experiences of an individual and social group are shaped by their interdependent and overlapping identities, but also that, ultimately, their access to power and privilege is structured by those.
[41] Crenshaw (1989) coined this interpretative framework by investigating the failures of the legal courts in DeGraffenreid v General Motors (1976), Moore v Hughes Helicopter (1983), and Payne v Travenol (1976) to recognize that Black women were both discriminated on the basis of gender and of race.
[43] Broadly put, public deliberations refer to the open spaces where free and equal citizens share and discuss their reasons for supporting different policy proposals and societal ideas.
[44] This area of applied epistemology explores the epistemic values, virtues, and vices that underscore and can be observed to emerge from deliberative decision-making.
On the one hand, the CJT provides a solid defense and empirical argument for the importance of voting in democracy: this procedure leads decision-making bodies to make better decisions because of more accurate epistemic inputs.
[48] Talisse (2004) responds to this proposed limitation by claiming that it is unclear about what exactly ‘ignorance’ refers to — according to him, this objection conflates the states of being uninformed, misinformed, and uninterested — and that attributing culpability to those that ‘do not know’ takes responsibility away from the democratic institutions (like media and academia) that fail them.
Mill (1859) is frequently referenced on this issue, notably supporting that free speech and public deliberation help to eliminate wrong opinions, permit correct beliefs to prevail, and, as a result, promote truth.
[50] Censorship and strict limitations of the public sphere would prevent different parties, in a disagreement, from even perceiving the truthful elements of their opponent's argument and could reinforce dogmatic tendencies in a given society.
On the one hand, he points to the fact that people do not usually discuss with groups that share different inclinations and predispositions on a particular topic: greatly limiting their ‘argument pool’.
[55] Sunstein also points to the empirical evidence that diverse and heterogeneous groups tend to give less weight to the views of low-status members — the latter also being frequently more quiet in deliberative bodies.
Other topics that explore the epistemology of deliberative democracy include, but are not limited to: epistemic proceduralism, the value or disvalue of disagreement, epistocracy, and social integration, among others.
