Moral Expertise – The Role of Expert Judgments and Expert Intuitions in the Construction of (Local) Ethical Theories

Abstract

In his ‘Outline for a decision procedure for ethics’ John Rawls says that the principal aims of ethics is the formulation of justifiable principles which may be used in cases wherein there are conflicting interests to determine which one of them should be given preference. The main reason to accept these principles as justifiable is that they explicate the considered judgements, the mature convictions of competent moral men as they have been worked out under the most favourable conditions (Rawls, Philos Rev 60:187, 1951). Although the competent moral judge in Rawls’ ‘Outline’ doesn’t need to have more qualities than the average intelligent morally maturated person (the ‘ordinary moral person’), he also shows some similarity with an expert. The competent moral judge has, according to Rawls, to know the peculiar facts of the situation in which he has to express his opinion. Ordinary moral persons are continuously confronted by complex moral problems of which they don’t know sufficient details for making a well-considered judgement. It seems that in such situations some level of expertise is needed for forming a well-considered judgement. My aim in this article is to examine whether (1) there are moral experts and (2) whether the quality of a reflective equilibrium can be strengthened by requiring that the well-considered judgements come from moral experts.