Applied/ Practical Philosophy

From its origins in ancient Greece, philosophy has sought to answer three broad questions: what is the nature of reality? What is the nature and place of human beings within it? and how ought one to live? The first two belong to speculative philosophy or metaphysics, the third belongs to practical philosophy or ethics. From a philosophical point of view ethics subdivides into three parts or levels differentiated by their increasing abstraction. At the first level is moral thinking and judgement: considering what is good or bad, right or wrong, virtuous or vicious. At the second level lies ethical theory: the systematic attempt to identify values and principles in terms of which first-level thinking may be justified. The third and most abstract level is metaethics which is concerned with the nature and status of moral thinking and ethical theorising considering whether it is subjective or objective and how it relates to reality. Considering the relationship of philosophical reflection to moral thinking two models emerge. The most familiar in recent times is that of Applied Philosophy. According to this, the role of philosophy is to work out an ethical theory and then deploy it in addressing and resolving first level moral questions. Examples of this approach would be the application of the utilitarian principle of promoting the greatest happiness of the greatest number to forming environmental policies, or to the legalisation of ‘recreational’ drugs. An older approach which derives from ancient and medieval philosophy is that of Practical Philosophy (philosophia practica) in which methods of philosophical analysis and used applied in thinking through moral questions and perplexities. This need not and typically does not involve pre-formed ethical theories but treats issues directly. In the process of doing so it may then formulate general ethical principles and distinctions. Examples of this would be the ‘discovery’ by Aquinas of the ethically-relevant distinction between intended and merely foreseen consequences, and the principle of non-combatant immunity in the conduct of war.