The Association for Practical and Professional Ethics

Who We Are

The Association for Practical and Professional Ethics (APPE) is a membership organization dedicated to advancing scholarship, education, and practice in practical and professional ethics.

Or, as we like to say, we're an organization for the ethically curious.

As a member, you'll get exclusive opportunities and discounts to attend APPE programs, including our annual conference, and more. As a non-member, you can still stay informed by joining our listserv to receive our monthly newsletter and weekly jobs and events postings.

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Attend the 2026 Conference

APPE invites individuals from every discipline and profession interested in advancing scholarship, teaching, and a general understanding of applied ethics to attend our 35th Annual APPE International Conference on March 5-8, 2026, in St. Louis.

There will be an online-only portion of the conference program on April 10, 2026, to accommodate our members, presenters, and guests who are located across the globe, or who are unable to attend the in-person conference in St. Louis.

This year's theme is What Do We Owe Each Other? In today’s complex world, what are our ethical responsibilities to each other? How do these responsibilities shift in times of crisis and catastrophe, or across our professional or personal lives? How do we stand up for what’s right—when it matters most, and when it seems to matter least?

APPE Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl®

The 2026 APPE Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl (APPE IEB)® National Competition will be held in St. Louis, March 7 and 8. The top 36 teams, comprised of undergraduate college students, will discuss issues using a set of cases that are drawn from real-life ethical challenges. The teams participating in the APPE IEB are judged not by their answers to specific questions, but by their ability to identify and analyze the ethical dimensions of each case in a clear, focused, and thoughtful manner and with an appreciation for varied perspectives.

This year's case set includes questions about medicine and public health, emerging technologies, media and culture, business practices, education, law and governance, and more. Across the collection, familiar ethical issues arise--autonomy, consent, fairness, harm, resonsibility, and trust.

More than 175 universities and colleges--and more than 215 teams--participated in 14 Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl regionals across the U.S. from California to the Chesapeake Bay.

Learn more about the regional competitions and Ethics Bowl.

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What We Do

Through our signature programs, as well as an annual conference and a variety of programs and events, APPE fosters moral reasoning skill development, works to promote ethical conduct in all sectors of our daily lives, nurtures the next generation of ethical leaders, and seeks to advance civil public discourse on diverse ethical issues.

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