Which field of applied ethics specifically addresses real-world business situations?

The field that specifically addresses real-world business situations is business ethics. This area of applied ethics focuses on the moral principles and standards that guide behavior in the business context. It examines issues such as corporate governance, insider trading, discrimination, and other practices that can arise within business settings.

Business ethics engages with the complexities of moral dilemmas that companies and their employees may face, aiming to establish frameworks for ethical decision-making and responsible business practices. It is crucial for navigating the challenges of maintaining ethical standards while pursuing profitability and success in the marketplace.

In contrast, normative ethics is concerned with establishing moral standards and principles that determine what actions are right or wrong, but it does not specifically focus on business contexts. Descriptive ethics studies how people actually behave and what moral beliefs they hold, lacking the prescriptive nature aimed at guiding behavior. Meta-ethics explores the nature, meaning, and foundations of ethical principles, which is more theoretical and not applied to specific situations like those in business. Thus, business ethics is uniquely positioned to directly address and analyze the ethical challenges encountered in the business world.