ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the field of social ethics and the three periods of its development in the US. Social ethics is fundamentally about social criticism and social change both as moving positively toward a vision of the good society, and in the disassembling of structures of social oppression and marginalization. Social ethics has concerns for human dignity and flourishing, human rights, respect, equity and social justice, the common good, and the natural environment and is not limited to a concept of justice. This chapter discusses the nominal use of social ethics in bioethics, based on its emphasis on distributive justice. It then examines the field of social ethics more fully, including its three periods and their potential for informing nursing’s approach to the vexing problem of racism. The links of social ethics to both nursing and the field of bioethics as it developed from the mid-1960s onward are then explored briefly. Because social ethics is fundamentally about social criticism and social change, and social change requires engagement with regulation and law, the chapter concludes with an examination of the Hart–Devlin debate and its importance to understanding the relationship between law, morality, and social policy.
