4.4 Summary - Differentiation in complex reference contexts

Summary

• In applied ethics, theoretical reflections on ethics are combined with practical questions of orientation.
• The task of applied ethics is to react to the problems of orientation in modern society.
• Basic concepts and principles of ethics and morality are reflected in the context of given circumstances.
• Due to the speed and dynamics of social and technical developments, (today) it is not always easy to ethically evaluate issues of relevance.
• Procedures for the advisory support of political decision-making and the creation of social consensus are often labelled as ethical.
• With regard to the advisory and orientational function of ethics councils or ethics committees, ethics can also be understood as an activity at the interface between science and society.
• The close interweaving of normative questions with findings and experiences from specific contexts of human interaction also leads to a pluralisation of the ethical approaches and basic attitudes of actors concerned.
• A consensus is necessarily preceded by discourse. These involve illuminating and analysing ethical problems that have a highly practical relevance.
• Areas of applied ethics could be described as a very specific part of applied ethics. Here an area refers to a more or less clearly definable sphere of human practice that raises moral problems and questions.
• Although general conclusions can certainly be drawn from the known theoretical ethics for a specific situation, it is still necessary to reflect on the thematic contexts and the area-specific level of knowledge in order to arrive at a qualified judgement of a moral issue in a specific lived reality.
• Different applied area-specific ethics can overlap depending on how complex a morally challenging issue is.
• Ethical problems raised by raw material extraction cannot be dealt with simply in terms of applied area-specific ethics.

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