Applied ethics is the philosophical examination, from a moral standpoint, of particular issues in private and public life that are matters of moral judgment. It is thus the attempts to use philosophical methods to identify the morally correct course of action in various fields of human life.
Bioethics, for example, is concerned with identifying the correct approach to matters such as
euthanasia, or the allocation of scarce health resources, or the use of human embryos in research.
Environmental ethics is concerned with questions such as the duties or duty of 'whistleblowers' to the general public as opposed to their loyalty to their employers. As such, it is an area of professional philosophy that is relatively well paid and highly valued both within and outside of academia.