Editing Applied ethics (section)

== History ==
Applied ethics has expanded the study of ethics beyond the realms of academic philosophical discourse.<ref>Bayertz, K. (2002) Self-enlightenment of Applied Ethics, in: Chadwick, R and Schroeder, D. (eds.) Applied Ethics, Vol1. 36–51, London: Routledge</ref> The field of applied ethics, as it appears today, emerged from debate surrounding rapid medical and technological advances in the early 1970s and is now established as a subdiscipline of moral philosophy. However, applied ethics is, by its very nature, a multi-professional subject because it requires specialist understanding of the potential ethical issues in fields like medicine, business or information technology. Nowadays, [[ethical codes]] of conduct exist in almost every profession.<ref>Giorgini, V., Mecca, J. T., Gibson, C., Medeiros, K., Mumford, M. D., Connelly, S., & Devenport, L. D. (2015). Researcher perceptions of ethical guidelines and codes of conduct. Accountability in research, 22(3), 123–138.</ref>

An applied ethics approach to the examination of moral dilemmas can take many different forms but one of the most influential and most widely utilised approaches in bioethics and health care ethics is the four-principle approach developed by [[Tom Beauchamp]] and [[James Childress]].<ref>Beauchamp, T. L. and Childress, J. F. (1994) Principles of medical ethics, New York: Oxford University Press.</ref> The four-principle approach, commonly termed [[principlism]], entails consideration and application of four [[prima facie]] ethical principles: [[autonomy]], [[Primum non nocere|non-maleficence]], [[Beneficence (ethics)|beneficence]], and [[justice]].