Persons with Moral Expertise and Moral Experts

Abstract

Moral philosophers who work in applied ethics are often asked to share with the general public their expert moral opinions on contemporary ethical issues. They are also sometimes called upon to give expert moral advice to health care professionals, to ethics committees, to governmental and/or quasi-governmental advisory committees, and to private institutions. Also, on occasion, their expert moral testimony is sought by the courts. The assumption underlying these and similar requests is that philosophers specialized in applied ethics are repositories of moral expertise and are, therefore, moral experts whose counsel should be heeded. The problem with this assumption, however, is that although practical moral philosophers may have moral expertise—by virtue of their background knowledge of classical moral theories, their studies in ethics and value theory, and their analytical skills—they are not ipso facto moral experts. As will be shown, there is an important difference between persons with expertise in moral matters and moral experts.