Charter

The broad purpose of the AAPAE is to encourage awareness of applied ethics as a significant area of concern, and to foster discussion of issues in applied ethics. It provides a meeting point for practitioners from various fields together with academics with specialist expertise. It welcomes everyone who wants or needs to think and talk about applied or professional ethics. The AAPAE also attempts to foster connections with special interest groups. The AAPAE does not endorse or support any particular viewpoint, but rather aims to promote a climate in which different and differing views, concerns, and approaches can be expressed and discussed.

The formal aims of the AAPAE, as stated in its constitution, are:

  • To facilitate networking between individuals and institutions working or interested in the area of professional and applied ethics.
  • To foster community discussion of issues related to professional and applied ethics.
  • To encourage a focus on the teaching of professional and applied ethics.
  • To facilitate research into ways to strengthen ethical practice.
  • To facilitate the organisation of conferences, meetings and other events in order to fulfil the above aims.
  • To develop and distribute publications, including a newsletter and conference proceedings.

Rationale

Ethics has had a high profile in Australia over the last few decades. There is now a growing recognition of applied ethics as a multidisciplinary field, encompassing a wide variety of disparate areas, investigation of which has an important role to play in public, academic and professional life.

Organisation

The AAPAE is an incorporated body administered by an executive committee under a constitution. In addition, a Conference Committee is appointed to organise an annual conference. The AAPAE aims to have office bearers from throughout Australia.

History

The Australian Association for Professional and Applied Ethics (AAPAE) grew out of a conference on Teaching Applied Ethics held in Sydney in 1992. Academics and professionals from many different backgrounds met together, found a great deal of common ground, profited from their interchanges, and were eager to meet again on a regular basis. The next step was to form an association which could bring together people normally separated by traditional discipline boundaries. Hence the formation in 1993 of the AAPAE, a non-partisan, non-profit national umbrella organisation for all those concerned with applied ethics in its many forms.

Executive Committee

  • Dr Hugh Breakey

    Institute for Ethics, Governance and Law Griffith University, Nathan Campus, Brisbane QLD 4122 +61 (0) 7 3735 5189 [email protected] https://hughbreakey.com/

    Hugh is a Senior Research Fellow in moral philosophy at Griffith University’s Institute for Ethics, Governance & Law. He has extensive experience in the application of ethical, legal and political philosophy to challenging practical fields, including peacekeeping, safety industries, institutional governance, integrity systems and corruption, climate change, sustainable tourism, resource and common property, professional ethics and international law. As well as his academic contributions, with more than fifty research publications, Hugh has consulted for several Australian government agencies, including ASIC, FASEA and the Professional Standards Councils.

  • Dr Jacqueline Boaks

    Ethics and Sustainability sub-discipline, School of Management and Marketing, Curtin University, WA +61 (0) 8 9266 2629 [email protected]

    Jacqueline is researcher and lecturer in ethics and leadership, and is a founding faculty member in the Ethics and Sustainability sub-discipline at Curtin University’s School of Management and Marketing. She is also a member of Curtin University’s ‘Sustainability in Business and Law (PRME)’ working group, and the founder of the WA Ethics Outside Philosophy group.

    Jacqueline has experience teaching ethics to medical students, principles of responsible management and ethics to business students at the UWA School of Business, leadership and ethics to MBA and business students at Curtin University and to high school students as part of the University of Western Australia’s high school outreach program. She has previously worked in the private sector in telecommunications, member based organisations, and consulting work. She is co-editor of Leadership and Ethics (Bloomsbury) and has published widely on democracy, ethics and leadership.

  • Dr Adam Andreotta

    School of Management and Marketing, Faculty of Business and Law, Curtin University, WA +61 (0) 412 431 210 [email protected] https://www.ajandreotta.com/

    Adam is a philosophy researcher. He currently teaches at Curtin University. His main research topic is the philosophy of self-knowledge, which focuses on how we know our own mental states. Adam has also written about the philosophy of artificial intelligence, specifically on the Ethics of Big Data and AI Rights; and the history of philosophy, with a keen interest in David Hume.

    His current research interests include Rudeness, the Future of Work, Adoration and Leadership. Adam is currently working on a research project with Michael Baldwin on ‘the ethics of the small’.

  • Dr Charmayne Highfield

    Singapore Management University +65 9146 9520 [email protected]

    Charmayne is a Chartered Accountant and received her PhD from Charles Sturt University in 2013 for investigating fairness in the workplace for Australian accountants. She began her accounting career in public practice before moving into management within the private health administration sector in 1994, and later lecturing in accounting and management at universities in Australia and Singapore. In addition to promoting excellence in accounting education, her current research interests include ethics education, human capital, organisation value creation and the future economy.

  • Dr Alan Tapper

    John Curtin Institute of Public Policy, Curtin University WA +61 (0) 428 153 315 [email protected]

    Alan taught philosophy in Perth for about 20 years, mainly at Edith Cowan University, and has worked as a public policy researcher at the John Curtin Institute of Public Policy, Curtin University, for about 10 years. His interests include social policy, philosophy in schools, moral philosophy, professional ethics, and 18th century intellectual history. His recent work has been on the Golden Rule and on social practices.

  • Dr Jorge Mendonca

    Curtin University [email protected]

    Dr Jorge Mendonca’s research focuses on the philosophical and scientific uses of the concept of altruism, investigating the historical development of this idea and the contemporary arguments for the existence of altruism. He is currently a research associate in the ARC project in philosophy of anthropology centred in the concept of kinship, “Keeping Kinship in Mind”, coordinated by Prof. Rob Wilson, at the University of Western Australia. He has experience teaching ethics, philosophy of the social sciences, bioethics, introduction to philosophy, critical thinking, business ethics, and modern philosophy.

    https://philpeople.org/profiles/jorge-mendonca-junior

  • Dr Larelle Bossi

    Law Futures Centre [email protected]

    Larelle Bossi has a passion for all things oceans and a commitment to ensure her children, and future generations will enjoy an ocean culture as she does. Avoiding the reductive terminology, she is often most critical of (ie: “knowledge broker”), Larelle often identifies as a philosopher within a transdisciplinary space. Her brand of biocultural ethics works alongside Eco-feminism and First Nations kinship worldviews. Her work involves contemporary issues of climate change, ocean cultures, resource and environmental management, ocean ethics, and the development of ethical cultures, leadership and investment.

    Larelle is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Ethics, Law and Governance at Griffith University, working on the Blue Economy CRC; an Industry Fellow (Climate) with the College of Business and Economics at the University of Tasmania; a member of the Centre for Marine Socioecology and a Principal Consultant for Vanico in her ‘spare time’.

    … and less seriously, she is an award-winning director that still from time to time may be seen within the film and theatre worlds …

  • Mr Lonnie Bossi

  • Dr Judith Kennedy

Past Presidents:

  • Stephen Cohen (2012)
  • Betty Chaar (2011)
  • Michael Schwartz (2008, 2009, 2010)
  • Howard Harris (2006, 2007)
  • Chris Provis (2004, 2005)
  • John Morgan (2002, 2003)
  • Bruce Langtry (2000, 2001)
  • Stephen Cohen (1998, 1999)
  • Noel Preston (1996, 1997)
  • Simon Longstaff (1994, 1995)