Are Moral Philosophers Moral Experts?

Abstract

In this paper I examine the question of whether ethicists are moral experts. I call people moral experts if their moral judgments are correct with high probability and for the right reasons. I defend three theses, while developing a version of the coherence theory of moral justification based on the differences between moral and nonmoral experience: The answer to the question of whether there are moral experts depends on the answer to the question of how to justify moral judgments. Deductivism and the coherence theory both provide some support for the opinion that moral experts exist in some way. I maintain - within the framework of a certain kind of coherence theory - that moral philosophers are 'semi-experts'.

Rethinking Moral Expertise

“…Few, it is to be expected, would accept the concept where the effect is to suggest that moral philosophers have 'privileged knowledge on what is morally right' [10]. Yet even the exceptional few who do argue for moral expertise, notably Singer [17] and Gesang [12], neither venture so far as to say that moral philosophers possess 'command knowledge' in the sense of telling people what they must do. Indeed, it is difficult to identify any voice claiming that this is what moral expertise entails.…”

“…3 A more nuanced version of this argument emerges from Gesang's view that moral philosophers are 'semi-experts'. Echoing Singer, Gesang argues that 'moral judgments from moral philosophers will be better founded and more likely to be right than judgments from ordinary people' [12]. While placing strong weight on moral philosophers' exclusive knowledge of ethical theories, even Gesang accepts that 'moral philosophers cannot pronounce absolute wisdom' or say as a physicist could 'your opinion is false' [12].…”

“…Key to this is the operation of subjective moral intuitions. Though moral intuitions fall short of the moral knowledge necessary for a well-founded moral judgment, Gesang [12] maintains that they remain a necessary part; he argues that because moral intuitions are shared by moral philosophers and laypersons, this means that 'moral philosophers are ''semi-experts'''. Rather than arguing that moral philosophers have exclusive access to knowing what is morally 'right', he notes that 'their judgments can be criticized by any ordinary person who has different intuitions' but goes on to argue that there are 'good reasons to take their judgments very seriously and to have them serve on political committees'.…”

“…Some, appreciating these problems, have attempted to identify alternative solutions which avoid the all-or-nothing approach, for example the idea that moral philosophers might be 'semi-experts' [12] but these constitute ad-hoc revisions of a problematic model and increases the potential for a confused semantic battle that we should seek to avoid. As we sought to illustrate, even commentators holding remarkably similar positions have nevertheless clashed on the question of moral expertise.…”

“…7 In respect of evaluative ability, there is broad acceptance that while experts may not always demonstrate superior ability to perform tasks central to experts, such as selecting stocks or weather forecasting, 'the experts are nearly always the best qualified to evaluate their own performance and explain the reasons for any deviant outcomes', Ericsson [9]. 8 As exemplified by Gordon [14], Cowley [7] and Gesang [12].…”