Moral Expertise: A Comparative Philosophical Approach

Abstract

Discussion of moral expertise typically ask whether knowledge of moral theory allows someone to make better moral judgments than those unversed in such theories, or at least to make sound judgments more reliably. This paper challenges a common assumption that real world moral judgments can be best understood as applications of a specific area of theoretical knowledge, rather in the way that engineering can be understood as a kind of applied physics. I challenge this assumption by drawing on the work of the comparative philosopher Thomas Kasulis to argue that a) moral wisdom is best understood as embodied in practices that do not readily admit of explicit discursive analysis, and b) such practices are themselves embedded in specific cultural traditions, so that c) moral expertise is realized in expertise and familiarity with culturally embedded behaviors. Consequently, moral expertise—even in an applied setting such as bioethics—is more akin to understanding classical ballet than knowing the principles and applications of a theoretical science. As an illustration, I then consider the classical Confucian idea of li, or ritual propriety, and its role in defining moral wisdom. I end by arguing that the appeals to specific cultural practices in this account does not entail relativism or subjectivism.