Etica pubblica, etica "abitata", ovvero trasformare la vita civile

This brief reflection was inspired by the question about the meaning of the expression "inhabiting ethics" to transform civil life. In an attempt to respond to it, the Author first asked herself the meaning of "applying ethics" and "applied ethics", where the context of application is society itself conceived as a political community. Therefore, it is possible to talk about “public ethics” in this specific application context. It has been specified that applying is not the same as deducing, where commitment to reality (in the context of application) re- quires going "beyond theory" or, perhaps, stopping a few steps before declaring the unreachability of ideals. It is a matter of accepting that the human world can reach goals that are always less than the ideal which one looks to. Attention to reality requires that theory also includes its own practicability. It means that theory, in its ideal part, must take into account reality as a set of constraints due to its practicability. In concrete terms, the que- stion to ask is what is really desirable, if an unattainable ideal or a "less than ideal" one though capable of giving a turn to our conduct. More directly it is necessary to ask ourselves some specific questions: how many chances of success do we have to improve the conditions of our coexistence? How much margin of transfor- mation of this reality, that binds us but also offers us opportunities for improvement, do we have?