Kansai University Society for Ethical Studies

(KUSES)

      Kansai University Society for Ethical Studies (KUSES) is an organization for studying ethics (moral philosophy). Its core members are scholars, graduate students, and undergraduate students studying at Kansai University. But scholars and graduate students from other universities and laypersons who are interested in ethics also participate in its activities. This organization is a private organization and does not belong to the educational foundation Kansai University. Its forerunner was Kansai University Bioethical Society, which was founded in 1998. Considering the development in the future, it was renamed in 2014 upon launching an electronic magazine, Journal for Ethical Studies  (ISSN 2188-6725).

      Ethics (moral philosophy) consists of three subdivisions: normative ethics (the study of the guidelines for action and their foundation), history of ethics or descriptive ethics (the study of the ethical theories established by philosophers and the ethical thoughts dominant in a specific society in specific times), and metaethics (analysis of ethical concepts). The normative ethical investigation tackling the ethical problems that appears newly in our social life is called applied ethics or practical ethics, which has made tremendous progress since 1960s.

       Due to the history of this society, its activities have mainly focused upon applied ethics so far, but we do not intend to limit our subject. We hope that various ethical themes will be discussed in this society.