Copyright © 2004, Glenn Mason-Riseborough - where what I mean by "copyright" is spelled out eloquently by Peter Suber on his Copyright page (and taking it as read, in the context, that where Suber refers to his documents, pages, and site I am referring to my documents, pages, and site).

However, whereas Suber is a professional academic, I am not. Before reading any further, read my disclaimer and warning on my My Writings page.

Of what use is a Moral Philosopher in Public Policy Decision-Making?

Glenn Mason-Riseborough (16/1/2004)

 

1 Introduction

Having spent half of my ten years at university formally studying philosophy, and coming to the end (for now) of my time within academia, a personal, but very practical, problem arises as to what I might do with my qualifications.  This is not merely a personal worry.  It also intersects with the more general question of what (if anything) philosophically trained graduates (not to mention professional philosophers) might contribute to society, especially and specifically in the context of applied ethics and public policy decision-making.

Of course, there is a long history of philosophers thinking that philosophers have a lot to contribute—famously Plato argued that philosophers were best qualified to rule, most of the philosophical debate within ancient China was on how to manage a kingdom and to best advise rulers, and almost all of the noteworthy philosophers throughout history have had things to say about right living and the proper sort of society.  It is not just fresh graduates who think that they know best.  But what reasons are given for this self-confidence?  Are there good arguments in favour of this, and is such an attitude justified?  Do philosophers have distinctive and relevant qualities that non-philosophers do not have?  Or is it mere narrow-minded arrogance?  This is what I will consider and evaluate.

On the other side there is the odd philosopher (and a few more non-philosophers) who is (and are) sceptical of the worth of distinctively philosophical contributions.  Some of these doubts are based on a perception of what the philosopher’s domain is, or ought to be, and that this domain doesn’t include policymaking and applied decision-making.  In other words, so the thought goes, philosophers aren’t especially qualified to deal with real life issues of public policy and applied ethics; their expertise lies elsewhere (and this is located variously, depending on the critic).  Other sceptics have certain more specific doubts about moral theory itself, and often their adoption (implicitly or explicitly) of some substantive metaethical position necessitates this scepticism.  For example, some worry about its overall usefulness given ongoing disagreement with respect to the correct theory, and the appearance that all theoretical positions have flaws or are insufficient.  Alternatively, less extreme doubters about theory propose that once all the many and relevant facts are collected and presented, very rarely (if ever) does one have to resort to moral theory to decide matters.  Good decisions are reached without explicit appeal to moral theory.  Again, I will consider and evaluate these arguments.

What I am interested in is what role, if any, ought philosophers, and especially moral philosophers (i.e. philosophers whose area of speciality is moral theory), have in applied ethics and public policy decision-making.  What can those trained in this area distinctively contribute to policy decisions in areas such as (but not limited to) healthcare, biotechnology, research, resource management and distribution, business, policing, justice, transport, defence, and so on?  To address this question I will divide the problem into three subquestions.

Firstly, in Section 2 I will investigate (i) what sorts of expertise philosophers in general have as part of their training and profession, and (ii) what sorts of expertise specifically moral philosophers have over and above this general philosophical expertise.  I will consider the specific skills, knowledge, and values of philosophers and moral philosophers, especially and specifically as they potentially or arguably relate to public policy decision-making.

Secondly, in Section 3 I will consider whether one’s having expertise in moral philosophy automatically and analytically makes one a moral or ethical expert.  I will discuss what it might mean for one to be a moral or ethical expert, and I will consider a number of alternative views on what the abilities of such experts might be (or even if such experts can exist).

Having thus arrived at an understanding of the distinctive abilities of philosophers and moral philosophers, and what the characteristics are of a moral or ethical expert, in Section 4 I will thirdly, and finally, consider how this expertise may fit in with applied ethics and public policy decision-making.  It is here that I will consider whether the philosophical abilities discussed in Section 2 really are relevant to policy analysis and decision-making.  I will look at the various reasons for thinking that these abilities are abilities worth having in at least some of those working in applied settings.  I will also look at arguments put forward that call into question the relevance of one or more of these abilities in such a context.  Finally, I will sum up where, to what degree, and in what capacity, I think philosophers are best suited to contribute, and I will consider how their advice should be treated—as coming from interested, but equal, members of the community, or from professionally consulted experts.

 

2 The expertise of philosophers and moral philosophers

Arguably, philosophers like to argue about everything.  They even like to argue about what it is that they are doing when they are doing philosophy.  This makes it difficult to say, uncontroversially, what it is that makes one an expert in philosophy.  What makes it doubly difficult is that there are many different philosophical traditions and schools, which, while overlapping to some degree, don’t overlap entirely.  Different traditions and schools emphasise different aspects.  It is a deep and technical question as to what the relationship might be between these various traditions that have existed over the past two and a half thousand years or so, all over the world.  I won’t attempt an answer to that huge question here; I will focus my discussion on the current dominant tradition within the English-speaking academic philosophical community, which typically gets called analytic philosophy (and of which I consider my primary training to be in).[1]

Jan Crosthwaite,[2] similarly explicitly identifying herself as an analytic philosopher, divides philosophical expertise into three broad categories—skills, knowledge and values.  I will similarly follow her partitioning, though I will note that some philosophers,[3] when writing on this topic, distinguish skills and knowledge, but do not explicitly separate out values as a separate category.  James W. Nickel,[4] for example, appears to consider some values and attitudes when discussing skills, though does not explicitly distinguish them as such.  For the most part, core philosophical skills and values are common to all philosophers, regardless of their area of specialisation, while philosophical knowledge varies somewhat depending on one’s interests.  Moral philosophers may have additional knowledge relevant to policy decision-making, over and above philosophers whose speciality lies elsewhere.

I will initially consider philosophical skills, knowledge, and values, specifically and especially as potentially applying to public policy decision-making, that all philosophers, for the most part, would possess.  I will then focus on those that moral philosophers will typically possess over and above these more general philosophical qualities.

 

2.1 The expertise of philosophers

First, philosophical skills.  With the rise of analytic philosophy over the past one hundred years or so, a number of skills have stood out as being distinctively philosophical skills—skills that one must develop if one wants to become a proficient philosopher (at least in Anglo-American analytic philosophy).  This is not to say that these skills weren’t necessarily prized prior to the rise of analytic philosophy.  As we will see, one skill is distinctively connected to Socrates, who is often thought of as the father (or sometimes the midwife) of Western philosophy.  Nor is it to say that no non-philosophers have these skills.  Such skills can be, and often are, used within many different disciplines.  It is also not to say that all analytic philosophers have these skills, or excel equally in all of them.  There are bad philosophers, and there are philosophers who abilities are narrower than others.  And nor is it to say that one either has these skills or one doesn’t.  Such skills come in degrees, and can be exhibited consistently or inconsistently.

But what it does mean is that there is, almost without exception, a conscious emphasis on developing these skills within philosophy students.  There are many specific philosophy courses designed to enhance these skills in students, and this focus forms the underlying backbone of most philosophy courses.  As students go through undergraduate and graduate training, they are rewarded for exhibiting these skills, and these skills are implicitly and explicitly inculcated.  Graduates consequently tend to get jobs as professional philosophers if (amongst other things) they consistently show excellence with respect to these skills.  Grades and jobs provide a selection mechanism to sort those who better possess these skills from those who don’t.  Good grades and jobs are no guarantee that one possesses these skills, but they do make possessing these skills far more likely.  What are these skills?

In his paper Nickel lists and explicates what he thinks are the main philosophical skills that are specifically relevant to policy deliberations.  Peter Singer[5] and Crosthwaite have similarly written on this topic.  All three writers have similar views of what the core relevant philosophical skills are.  I will start with a review of the skills that Nickel discusses.

Socratic Doubt:  Nickel likens the practitioner of Socratic doubt to a gadfly who whispers “you know less than you think” into the ears of policymakers such as politicians, scientists, economists and moralists.  Perhaps this skill can be thought of as the ability to reduce hubris in oneself and others, and the willingness to challenge unquestioned assumptions.  The Socratic Doubter uses philosophical skills and knowledge to identify and challenge relevant assumptions that policymakers wrongly see as unproblematic, and thus demonstrates certain confusions and lack of knowledge within the policymakers.  Such a doubter is not a thoroughgoing sceptic with respect to all knowledge, but rather targets certain specific claims of knowledge that have perhaps been naively put forward without full awareness of their contentiousness.  Philosophers’ awareness and fair consideration of many alternative points of view puts them in a position of being able to help policymakers think outside the narrow parameters of their professions.  Nickel gives an example of certain philosophers pointing out the weaknesses and pretensions of cost-benefit analysis, especially with respect to environmental considerations.

Skills in Conceptual Analysis and Reconstruction:  A large part of analytic philosophy is the detailed investigation of the meanings of words and the clarification and analysis of concepts and conceptual frameworks.  This is because philosophers have realised that many problems and disagreements arise, or become more complex, through confusions and ambiguities in language and also unclear argumentation.  By focusing on systematically clarifying what is in dispute, and where the relevant arguments and claimed reasons are, progress in resolution can often be made.  This skill also links with the ability to express oneself clearly and precisely, and without ambiguity.  Philosophers’ professional experience in this area gives them a distinctive proficiency and skill.[6]  Nickel thinks that there are two aspects to this skill—one destructive and one constructive.  The destructive aspect is with respect to undermining commonly supposed distinctions that turn out not to be there (for example, the supposed distinction between actions and omissions).  The constructive aspect is with respect to identifying distinctions that may not have previously been noticed.  Again, Nickel gives examples of where philosophers have achieved results with respect to policy matters, such as with respect to the clarification of matters to do with discrimination and also human rights.

Dialectical and Methodological Skills:  Another core set of philosophical skills centres on excellence with respect to argumentation.  Nickel identifies three aspects: “highly developed abilities to argue well, to construct interesting arguments, and to identify fallacies and weak premises.”[7]  As part of these skills we might also add the ability to spot inconsistencies, and identify assumptions and consequences.  A skilled philosopher appropriately uses her/his knowledge of logic and reasoning to both give quality assessments of the reasoning of others and also to construct her/his own good arguments.  Nickel also includes the skill of analysing and interpreting statistical data, and explains that philosophers have often become proficient in this area as they consider problems to do with, for example, risk assessment.  Necessarily, excellence with respect to this set of skills also requires a lot of propositional knowledge—knowledge of formal and informal logic, fallacies of reasoning, probability theory, decision theory, game theory, etc.  Most philosophers will be familiar with fallacies and informal logic, and have a working understanding of these other areas; philosophers whose competence includes logic, epistemology, and/or philosophy of science will typically be proficient working in these various theoretical areas.

Broad Vision:  A final skill that Nickel identifies is the ability to see outside the box.  In certain respects this links with the skill of Socratic doubt, since broad vision is needed to be able to question assumptions appropriately.  One insists, of oneself and others, on seeing many different sides of a problem, and one is sceptical of a single or narrow range of methodologies and institutions.  It seems to me that we could add, as a related component of this skill, the ability to think up relevant hypotheticals.  Philosophers are often particularly skilled—and some take an almost perverse delight—in working through all possible situations, or combinations of situations, ranging from plausible to merely possible.  Philosophers also attempt to give appropriate weight to all relevant considerations.  Again, Nickel cites how philosophers have, by applying the skill of broad vision, pointed out externalities, in certain areas, that have been ignored by cost-benefit analysis and market valuing.

Moving now to Crosthwaite and Singer’s respective accounts of the relevant philosophical skills.  Crosthwaite identifies two distinctive and relevant philosophical skills—that of (a) clarification and analysis of concepts and problems, and (b) construction and assessment of arguments and viewpoints.  These map, near perfectly, onto Nickel’s second and third skills, respectively.  As I say, I take these to be the two main and distinctive skills of philosophers in general.  Nickel’s first and fourth skills are important, but perhaps not so distinctive of philosophical training.  Many others without philosophical training may also have, to a greater or lesser degree, a broad vision and the ability to challenge assumptions.

Similarly, Singer mentions abilities to “reason well and logically, to avoid fallacious reasoning in one’s own arguments, and to detect fallacies when they occur in the arguments of others.”[8]  This is most similar to Nickel’s third skill.  Singer, similar to Crosthwaite, Nickel, and myself, points out that these abilities, while not limited only to philosophers, are especially and directly encouraged and developed within philosophy, since logic is one of its branches.  One may develop it elsewhere (for example in law), or have a natural ability in it, but philosophy attempts to do it more explicitly and directly.  Philosophers are not necessarily perfect practitioners of these skills, but philosophical training is a better guarantee of having them, than training in other disciplines.

I would add one more skill that, while not especially distinctive of philosophy, is surely important.  This is the skill of research.  Especially these days, when there is an overabundance of information available to almost everyone, one needs to be able to efficiently and quickly sort and find the precise information that one needs.  Also, given that, as discussed above, philosophers’ distinctive skill is clarification and argumentation, philosophers generally don’t do their own empirical research.  Yet they still need to know empirical facts relevant to their field.  This means that they need to be skilled at searching out and finding the empirical data produced by other disciplines.  For example, philosophers of mind need to be able to search out and find psychological, neurological, and computational research, and medical ethicists need to be able to search out and find medical research and case histories.

Before turning to philosophical knowledge and values it is worth noting that some aspects of the skills discussed above overlap with knowledge and values.  For example, I have already pointed out that for one to exhibit excellence in dialectical and methodological skills one must also have a sufficient level of knowledge of what it is for an argument to be a good argument.  This requires a background knowledge of theories in logic, epistemology, and so on.  Similarly, exhibiting the skill of Socratic doubt requires one to value questioning key assumptions and be willing to question and challenge oneself and others.  Nickel explicitly writes of Socratic doubt as a willingness.  While exhibiting this excellently is a skill, calling it a willingness suggests an attitude or value rather than exclusively a skill.

Second, philosophical knowledge.  Philosophical knowledge is immensely varied, given that the subject matter of philosophy is extremely wide.  Different philosophers focus their attentions on very different topics, and the knowledge required in different specialist areas is varied.  Philosophers of science need to know about the history of science and scientific theories; political philosophers need to know about governments and society; philosophers of art need to know about music, architecture, fine art, and so on.

However, some things, for the most part, are commonly known to all philosophers.  As already mentioned above, the main type of knowledge common to philosophers in general is knowledge of what it is that makes an argument a good argument.  All philosophers will have a good understanding of informal logic and reasoning in natural languages—deductively valid logical forms, fallacies of reasoning, and so on.  They know the common problems that arise in people’s reasoning and thinking, as well as what works.  They will also typically know the forms of responses, counter-examples, and so on, which are commonly used in many debates.  Most philosophers will also know at least something of formal logic and the more technical aspects of theories of reasoning, and some will be proficient logicians.  Philosophers are also generally familiar with theories of knowledge—what it takes to know something, and types of justification.

Another type of knowledge is a self-reflective awareness of philosophy as a discipline and the various critiques of the discipline as a whole.  Possessing this knowledge improves one’s skills (for example that of broad vision) and makes one more aware of one’s own potential biases, assumptions, and interests, and how they may affect one’s understanding and framing of problems, debates, and solutions.

Third, philosophical values.  Crosthwaite is the only writer, of those I am considering, who explicitly includes values and attitudes as part of what is taught in academic philosophy.  Having said this, she grants that this is the most controversial component of philosophical teaching and expertise.  The philosophical values that Crosthwaite lists are a(n):

—commitment to understanding issues and views

—commitment to reasoned support and evaluation of beliefs or claims

—willingness to question key assumptions and challenge received wisdom

—interest in finding solutions to philosophical questions and problems[9]

 

She also notes that the analytic philosophical tradition emphasises detached reflection over applied philosophy.  But perhaps, it seems to me, this is changing somewhat, if it ever really was as anti-applied as has been sometimes suggested.[10]

Overall, what is notable in this list is an emphasis on issues, problems, reasons, and argumentation.  The focus is clearly on ideas, rather than the people or personalities behind the ideas.  Philosophers will aim to follow the arguments wherever they may lead, even if it results in challenging or ultimately rejecting what is commonly accepted by authorities or society as a whole.

Furthermore, these values and attitudes can be seen as the impetus behind the emphasis in philosophy to develop the skills and knowledge discussed above.  For example, the third of these values links with the skill of Socratic doubt, and the second links with the skills of reasoning and the knowledge of logic and argumentation.  Such commitments as above require one to become knowledgeable about argumentation and logic, and to develop skills of questioning, analysis, reasoning, and argument.

Finally, there is a category of philosophical characteristics that have nothing to do with the philosopher’s own skills, knowledge, or values, but rather have to do with the social and environmental context in which philosophers typically find themselves.  I see two further components of philosophical expertise that fit into this camp.  Firstly, philosophers have the time to think and reflect.[11]  It seems plausible (at least to me) that for one to be a philosophical expert one must have the time to devote to thinking deeply about philosophical problems.  If one has a fulltime job elsewhere, then one is not going to have the time to develop or display philosophical expertise.  Secondly, philosophers are sufficiently insulated from external biases to be reasonably impartial observers and evaluators.[12]  Philosophers, and especially those working within academia, are less likely to fear reprisals for following the reasoning to an unpopular conclusion (though they are not absolutely free of political or personal biases).

I now turn to a consideration of the additional abilities of philosophers whose area of specialisation is ethics and moral theory.

 

2.2 The expertise of moral philosophers

Over and above those skills, knowledge, values, and external factors of philosophers discussed above in Section 2.1, moral philosophers will have further qualities arguably relevant to public policy decision-making.  Most significantly, this will include further knowledge, though this knowledge will, in combination with general philosophical skills, produce further skills.  Nickel, Singer, Crosthwaite, and Dale Jamieson[13] discuss, in their own ways, the main types of additional knowledge moral philosophers possess.  I will combine and summarise what I see as the main arguably relevant types of knowledge that these four writers discuss.

Knowledge of Moral Concepts:  One type of knowledge is that which involves the meanings of moral vocabulary, and an understanding of the moral concepts.  To begin discussing morality, it is important that one is clear about the relevant concepts; lack of clarity regarding the moral concepts is likely to result in confusion.  While one may gain this knowledge in many places, a philosophical course in ethics will typically explicitly address this topic, and is most likely to be the place to reduce such confusions and language errors.

Knowledge of Moral Theories:  A second type of moral knowledge is that of moral theories.  Moral philosophers are required to know sufficiently the major ethical theories, as well as their strengths and their weaknesses.  Amongst other things, this would include familiarity with the various forms of consequentialist, deontological, and virtue theories, along with theories of justice, rights, and so on.  Depending on one’s interests and specialisation, moral philosophers will usually be familiar with how these theories relate to moral problems in at least some of business, law, the environment, healthcare, politics, and so on.  Again, this is not to say that moral philosophers are the only people who will be familiar with moral theories, but, all things being equal, it is moral philosophers who are most likely to be most familiar with them.

Knowledge of Human Moralities:  A third type of knowledge is that of the empirical historical, anthropological, sociological, and psychological facts about human moralities that have existed at different times and places.  This is an awareness of how moral codes have changed and developed over time and in different societies.  This sometimes gets called descriptive ethics or descriptive morality, since it is purely descriptive, not evaluative, of accepted moral views within cultures and individuals.  Of the types of knowledge discussed so far, this is the area that is least distinctive of the expertise of philosophers and moral philosophers.  Some may know a decent amount, and most will be able to cite well-known examples (such as Eskimo infanticide or African female circumcision).  But few philosophers would be as familiar with this empirical research as anthropologists and sociologists, for example.  Philosophers will typically only be familiar with this to the extent that cases and situations are relevant to evaluating moral codes, practices, or actions, or providing examples or counter-examples to moral theory.

Knowledge of the Relevant Facts:  Moral philosophers, and especially those working in more applied areas, need to be well informed of the relevant facts pertaining to the field or case at hand.  Medical ethicists need to know enough about medicine, environmental ethicists need to know enough about fields such as geology, biology, and/or meteorology, and political philosophers need to know enough about political systems, sociology, psychology, and so on.  This means that these philosophers will typically have sought out this factual information, or have ready access to it.  Again, this is an area that is not especially distinctive of the expertise of philosophers and moral philosophers.  They mostly will not know as much factual or technical information as experts in these other respective fields, and non-philosophers are just as likely to have acquired or have access to this information.  However, philosophers whose specialisation is in one or more of these fields will, to exhibit excellence in their field, need to have acquired, or have access to, the relevant information.

Combining the general philosophical abilities with this knowledge, moral philosophers will typically possess a critically examined moral perspective.  This perspective will be a belief or set of beliefs that ranges over various moral topics, at different levels of analysis.  It could include a perspective on metaethical topics or normative ethical topics, or it might include a perspective on some more substantive applied issues and problems.  Such a perspective will be one that has been considered at length and for some time, critically examined, tested for consistency, systematised, and compared with alternative perspectives.  It will be a position that is defensible from a number of potential objections, though need not be the only possible defensible position.

As a result of having this additional knowledge, and in combination with the more general philosophical skills, moral philosophers will have further skills.  These skills will strengthen one’s critically examined moral perspective.  These are:

Ability to Test Moral Beliefs:  Combining the factual knowledge of moral philosophers above with the general philosophical skills discussed in Section 2.1 produces skills in testing moral beliefs.  These moral beliefs can be general or more specific moral principles or claims.  They may range, for example, from claims that one ought only to consider consequences, to claims that one ought always treat relevantly similar things equally, to claims that euthanasia is always wrong, to claims that person, P should not have lied in situation, S.  To test these claims and principles, one looks for inconsistencies, poses hard cases, or suggests analogies with similar but easier cases.

Ability to Argue from Plausible Moral Principles to Interesting Results about Policy:  This is the ability to defend or arrive at substantive policies or applied solutions by reasoning from some moral principle that most people will already agree with, or find reasonable to accept.  One does not attempt to start with some more general moral theory or defend the moral principle with reference to a moral theory; one simply starts from the moral principle and shows what logically follows from holding such a principle.  As an example of this style of argument, I have previously, in another context, argued for language teachers to refrain from socialising with students.  I argued this by starting from the moral principle that “if engaging in an activity is likely to limit severely our ability to honour one of our moral obligations, then we have a prima facie moral obligation not to engage in that activity.”  As another example, we might argue for vegetarianism by starting from the principle that we ought to treat like things alike.  Since we don’t eat fellow human beings, and (so it is argued) there is no relevant difference between humans and non-human animals, then it follows that the eating of non-human animals is unjustified discrimination and a violation of this plausible principle.

Ability to Argue from Ethical Theories to Applied Policy Decisions:  There are weak and strong versions of this ability.  The weak version is the ability to apply moral theory appropriately to some applied problem or policy matter.  On the weak version one does not need to endorse or defend the moral theory as fully adequate or authoritative; one is merely seeing what follows from some plausible, commonly held, or contextually relevant moral theory.  On the strong version one presupposes that there is, or one day will be, a fully adequate moral theory, and that such a theory applies to policy deliberations.

There may well be additional characteristics of philosophers or moral philosophers that arguably apply to public policy decision-making, which I have not covered in this section.  However, I take it that these are the central ones, and ones most commonly considered.  Next, in Section 3, I will consider if possessing these characteristics necessarily makes one a moral or ethical expert.  Then, in Section 4, I will consider how (if at all) these characteristics are useful in public policy decision-making.

 

3 What is moral or ethical expertise?

In many areas of life we take it as uncontroversial to call someone an expert in her/his field, and contrast such a person with non-experts in that field.  The expert pianist has a skill in playing the piano than the non-expert does not have.  The expert mechanic has superior knowledge of the workings of cars, and has a better chance of repairing them than the non-expert mechanic.  The mathematical expert has superior numeracy skills, has knowledge of mathematical problems, and has a better chance of solving some mathematical problem than non-experts in mathematics.  The expert soccer player has superior ball-skills and is able to help his team score more goals than the opposition team and/or prevent the opposition team from scoring more goals.  If we want to hear music played well on the piano, we would do better to go to an expert pianist; if we want our car fixed, we would do better to go to an expert mechanic; if we want a mathematical problem solved, we would do better to go to a mathematical expert; if we want to see soccer played well, then we would do better to watch an expert soccer player.  In general, experts are better than non-experts at solving problems in their field, or have certain abilities or advantages in their field than do non-experts.  This extra ability—superiority in some field—is what makes them experts.

But when we talk of a moral expert or an ethical expert, questions are more likely to be asked.  To start with it is not entirely clear what it is that an expert would do better than a non-expert, in the field of morality or ethics.  What is the field of excellence, and how might we test it?

Singer addresses this question just with respect to ethical experts.[14]  He answers the first half of this question by making an analogy between ethics and mechanics.  An expert mechanic is someone who can fix our car, and hence solve our problem of the broken-down vehicle.  Similarly, according to Singer, an ethical expert is one who can solve our moral problems—that is, problems to do with fundamental human concerns, and which are of serious consequence and importance to us.

Singer may be correct to make this analogy, but we might wonder if problem-solving is required of being an expert.  What about expertise in piano playing?  Do expert pianists solve problems, or merely exhibit superior piano playing skills.  We might, for example, construe it that expert pianists solve the problem of the audience’s desire to hear good music.  But to some this might seem like twisting things too much.  If it is reasonable to think that not all experts solve problems, then this opens the door to the possibility that moral or ethical experts need not solve problems.  An alternate conception is to think of morality and/or ethics as not necessarily focused on problem-solving, but perhaps skilful living, or something similar.  I will come back to this idea below, after fleshing out what moral or ethical experts would be like on the assumption that their expertise involves solving moral problems.

Returning to Singer, if we think that ethical expertise involves solving moral problems, then the difficulty he identifies is how to tell when a moral problem has been solved.  While acknowledging the complexity of this issue, and realising that a complete answer requires a detailed metaethical discussion about the nature of ethics, Singer does suggest an answer.  His answer is based on the premise that reason and logical argument have some role to play in ethics.  In other words Singer assumes (i) an expert in ethics has superior abilities at solving moral problems, and (ii) reason and logical argument have some role to play in this solving of moral problems.

Singer thinks that if we accept (i) but not (ii), then there is no such thing as expertise in ethics.  This will be the case if ethics is entirely a matter of subjective feelings or intuitions, in which anyone’s feelings or intuitions are of equal worth.  Yet, according to Singer, this would be an extreme position to take, and even those who call themselves “subjectivists” admit to some level of reason, even if it is just avoiding fallacies and internal inconsistencies.

Acknowledgment of this minimal requirement, for Singer, opens the door to five additional and more formal requirements for one to be an ethical expert.  I will just list these, as they repeat a subset of the requirements I discussed above for expertise as a moral philosopher.  They are:

1.      Abilities of reasoning and logic.

2.      Understanding of the meanings of moral concepts and nature of ethics.

3.      Knowledge of major ethical theories.

4.      Knowledge of the relevant facts.

5.      Sufficient time to think.

Jamieson, unlike Singer, prefers to write of moral experts rather than ethical experts.  Similar to Singer, he takes argumentation to be the key and initial component of the moral expert.  Moreover, Jamieson explicitly links moral experts with moral philosophers; moral philosophers are likely candidates, though not exclusively so, of being moral experts.  His reason for this link is that he says (i) philosophers can construct sound arguments about how people ought to live, (ii) such arguments lead to surprising, even “ludicrous”, conclusions that go against the assumptions of those who haven’t previously thought about the topic, and (iii) having such surprising results is a characteristic of any type of expertise.  He cites Singer and Tom Regan on vegetarianism as clear examples of those who have developed these types of surprising conclusions.

Jamieson discusses five components that go into making one a moral expert; four of these are the same as Singer’s—1, 2, 3, and 5.  Jamieson does not mention knowledge of the facts, however he does include political neutrality and the ability to go wherever the arguments lead.

Nickel’s view of moral expertise is mostly similar to both Singer’s view of ethical expertise and Jamieson’s view of moral expertise, except that he draws out and distinguishes the skills and knowledge into further distinct categories.  However, he does not attempt to give a basis as to why we should think of one with such skills as a moral expert.  Again, I have discussed the details of each of these points above, so shall just list his requirements for one to be a moral expert.  These are:

1.      Socratic doubt.

2.      Skills in conceptual analysis and reconstruction.

3.      Dialectical and methodological skills.

4.      Broad vision.

5.      Knowledge of human moralities, moral concepts, and moral theories.

6.      Ability to test moral beliefs by uncovering inconsistencies and posing insightful analogies.

7.      Possession of a critically examined moral perspective.

8.      The ability to give persuasive formulations of widely held moral principles and to argue cogently from these to interesting results about policy.

Nickel also lists weak and strong applied ethics, when he lists these eight characteristics above.  However, it is not clear if Nickel thinks that moral experts characteristically use weak and/or strong applied ethics, since it is at this point in his discussion that he slides from a discussion of moral expertise into a discussion of the connection between philosophy and policy.  I suspect he is not committed to such a position.

I will now turn to a number of objections to this view described above that essentially links expertise as a philosopher or moral philosopher with moral or ethical expertise (in one or another of the minor variations discussed above).

Firstly, it is argued, any suggestion of moral or ethical expertise—that some people are better at solving problems regarding how to conduct our lives well—is a clear case of elitism.  The possibility of moral or ethical experts (let alone who they might be) goes against the central principles of a democratic, pluralist society.  Singer discusses this objection at length, and concludes that it fails to hold weight.  I need not repeat his reasoning here.

Secondly, a similar type of response that is aimed against the possibility of moral or ethical experts is put forward in the conclusion to The Warnock Report on Human Fertilisation and Embryology.[15]  Mary Warnock thinks that, while Singer’s (with Deane Wells in their 1984 book The Reproductive Revolution) description of the ethical expert is unthreatening, those who have these abilities “sound like a collection of reasonably intelligent first-year philosophy students, following an introductory course in moral philosophy and capable of benefiting from books and lectures”,[16] and it would be misleading to call such people “experts”.  It seems to me that Warnock’s comparison is totally misleading and inappropriate.  It is a bit like saying that a first-year student of physics who has done an introductory course in nuclear physics is an expert nuclear physicist.[17]  True, the student knows the theory of how to build a nuclear reactor, but he or she needs a lot more experience and background besides this to be considered an expert.  Singer is explicit that the expertise he is considering comes in degrees—one needs to be able to put together good arguments consistently, and it is very unlikely that a first-year student would be able to get a paper published in Ethics or Philosophy and Public Affairs.

But Warnock’s position becomes a little more understandable—though hardly plausible—when we get to her view of expertise.  She states:

The only point of the expression [“expert”] is to suggest that their conclusions should be accepted without question.  Other people … must be prepared to say “the experts have decided that this or that is right; we are in no position to disagree.”[18]

 

And Warnock thinks that no one could ever think that this could be true of moral or ethical experts, or that their statements carry this sort of authority.  I think Warnock is correct to say that we could never claim that moral experts have this sort of unquestionable authority.  But it seems to me, however, that this view of experts is far too strong.  If this is what we mean by “expert” then I doubt we would have experts in any field whatsoever.  In all fields experts are never beyond questioning; expert judgements in all fields should be open to evaluation (especially by their professional equals, but also by others who take the time to inform themselves of the issues).

Another reason that Warnock gives is that there is disagreement amongst philosophers.  The brief response to this is to say (a) experts in almost all fields disagree with each other on various points, (b) there is also a lot of agreement between philosophers, and (c) surely all disagreement means is that there is still more work to do—when doctors disagree amongst themselves about a diagnosis they don’t give up and say that there are no experts!  But, I will put this point to one side for the moment, since this idea is separately raised and rejected by both Jan Narveson[19] and Jamieson, whom I consider below.

Warnock’s final reason why there can be no ethical experts is based on the Protestant tradition—everyone has a right to judge for him or herself.  This may be so, but the Protestant tradition doesn’t suggest that anyone’s views are as good as anyone else’s—there can still be standards.  And puzzlingly, this insistence on everyone being able to judge for him or herself seems at odds with Warnock’s earlier claim about experts being beyond question.  Furthermore, Singer’s response to the first objection above regarding democracy and pluralism applies to this objection here.  So I don’t think Warnock’s position is a strong one.

Thirdly, there are objections that centre on whether it is possible to do applied ethics.  If applied ethics is impossible, then there is no applied field for moral philosophers to engage in.  At best the moral philosopher’s domain is clarifying concepts; she or he cannot engage in or solve real life moral problems of policy and action.  And if the moral philosopher cannot engage in real life moral problem solving, she or he cannot possible be an expert in that field.  The obvious response to this set of objections, as Narveson points out, is “look and see—it is actually being done!”  And the follow-up to this is “not only is it being done, but it is being done well and more often better by philosophers, and moreover getting practical results.”  If this is not enough, Narveson also lists and replies to a number objections to the possibility of applied ethics.  Since Narveson does a good job of fairly raising the objections and showing why they don’t work, I will simply list the objections she covers and move on (though I will come back to objection (5) when discussing the skill model of ethical expertise).  They are:

1.      There is a distinction between metaethics and normative ethics, and philosophers’ business is the former, not the latter.

2.      There is disagreement amongst philosophers, and they cancel each other out with respect to getting practical results.

3.      Moral theories are indeterminate with respect to action.

4.      People have fixed moral beliefs and will never be persuaded: (i) Ethical theorising is futile and won’t change moral beliefs.  (ii) People’s beliefs are not amenable to any kind of moral influence at all.

5.      Intuitions are bottom line, not moral theories.

6.      All there is is getting the facts, and there is no room for philosophising.

7.      Reality is unanalysable and/or extremely complex, and cannot be analysed using abstract principles.

Similarly, Jamieson lists and discusses some misunderstandings and objections.  Some of these repeat those covered by Narveson.  For the same reason as above, I will just list these.  They are:

1.      The same as Narveson (1).

2.      The metaethical positions of relativism and/or subjectivism.

3.      Virtue cannot be taught.

4.      The same as Narveson (2).

5.      The opposite of 4.  After a lot of hot air applied ethics merely reinforces our prior beliefs.

6.      Methodological problems. (i) The same as Narveson (5).  (ii) Badly done surveys of the main general moral theories.

7.      Philosophers’ focus on individuals and not social problems.

Similar to Narveson, Jamieson also points out that applied ethics is actually being done.  He moreover adds that jobs for moral philosophers are on the increase in many applied areas and moral philosophers are working in a number of settings as applied ethicists, and not just in academic settings.

Jamieson’s problem (2) reappears frequently, and just as frequently is knocked down.  In two separate publications, which have significant overlaps, James Rachels[20] replies in more detail to this objection.  In his argument to show how reason must have some place in a minimum conception of morality, he considers arguments from both non-cognitivists (such as emotivists or prescriptivists) and relativists of various sorts (such as metaethical cultural relativists or subjectivists).  In this way Rachels more formally and thoroughly addresses the problem that Singer raised with respect to rejecting his (ii). Again, there is no need for me to reiterate the details of these oft-repeated discussions, and I accept the essence of what Rachels says.  Likewise, Crosthwaite responds to and rejects many of these objections listed above (such as Narveson (2)).

Having for the most part just listed objections that fall into this category, it is worth pausing for a moment and focusing on one further objection of this type.  This is the position taken by David McNaughton[21] when he argues on the basis of a particularist view.  McNaughton does not go to the extreme of claiming that moral claims have no truth-values (as does the non-cognitivist), and nor does he take the relativist line.  McNaughton is an objectivist, yet he argues that there is no such thing as a “rationally acceptable set of moral principles which can guide us through specific problems in practical ethics.”[22]  In this respect he follows, in some respects (though not all), Jonathan Dancy, W. D. Ross, and others.  Annette Baier[23] seems to take a similar line in her scepticism of moral theory, although she does not label her position as “particularist”.

McNaughton firstly argues for particularism, and from this argues that there is no reason why a person who has spent time devoted to philosophical reflection should be more sensitive to the moral truth than any other person, and in fact may be worse.  In his arguments in favour of particularism he concludes that there is no such subject as moral theory, and hence no such person as a moral or ethical expert.  His basic argument against philosophers as moral experts is:[24]

1.      What a philosopher is offering is expertise in practical ethics—the study of localised moral questions such as abortion or euthanasia.

2.      Any claim that the philosopher is in a good position to know what is right in the local case depends on a belief in the validity of moral theory.

3.      Particularism—that there is no such subject as moral theory—is true.

4.      Therefore there is no such subject as practical ethics.

5.      Therefore the philosopher has no distinctive claim to being a moral or ethical expert.

Further, McNaughton thinks that there are good reasons for thinking that philosophers, as a general rule, are not in a position to be qualified to even give moral advice.  He thinks that to give moral advice one has to have had a wide experience of life and a suitable range of emotional experiences.  In his view academic life neither attracts those with these qualities nor encourages them in those who have entered academia.

I think McNaughton’s argument fails.  Firstly, I don’t buy into particularism; I am not convinced that moral theory fails.  There is a lot to say about this, but I will refrain from engaging at this point.  What I will say is that even if particularism holds, McNaughton’s argument still fails.  This is because 2 does not hold.  As I was showing in Section 2.2, using Nickel’s partitioning of the various levels of moral theories and/or principles, there is still a lot of room for philosophical debate, even if we don’t think that there is, or will ever be, a complete moral theory.  If one does not accept that there is, or will ever be, a complete moral theory, then one may instead use weak moral theory—see what follows from some plausible, commonly held, or contextually relevant moral theory.  If one does not think that any moral theory is useful, in any way, then one might reason from fairly specific contextually appropriate or plausible moral principles (particularists still typically do this).  If one goes to the extreme of denying all moral principles (as McNaughton appears to do in places), then one may still test for consistency or plausibility by considering appropriate analogies and/or examples.  That is, there is still a wide range of skills and knowledge possessed by the moral philosopher that can be applied appropriately to moral questions.  Even given particularism, the philosopher can still apply her/his expert knowledge and skills to moral problems.  It is for this reason that McNaughton has failed to show that philosophers have no distinctive claim to being a moral or ethical expert.

However, I do think that McNaughton’s further point about the experience of philosophers has some weight, properly understood and modified.  On the one hand, I don’t think it is realistic to think that moral philosophers are as devoid of life experience or an emotional range, as McNaughton tends to suggest.  Most philosophers have a life outside of their university duties, and are no more or less likely to be emotionally stunted than any other group of people (such as doctors, lawyers, politicians, or businesspeople).  However, on the other hand, it is entirely possible that many philosophers do not have the required experience in certain applied fields of moral debate, to allow them to contribute constructively.  For example, doctors and nurses are more likely to have the appropriate experience to consider many of the relevant issues in medicine and healthcare (even if they don’t have the same level of certain other skills and/or knowledge, as discussed above).  This is why I think that Singer is right to additionally insist on knowledge of the facts, as a requirement of an ethical expert (and why I also included it as part of being a moral philosopher, or at least for those who do applied ethics).  For a philosopher to contribute appropriately to debates in medical ethics, one needs to have had some experience of what actually happens at the coalface of medicine.  This is why it is preferable to have philosophers in residence contributing to solving moral problems as they arise, and within the everyday context, not merely advising from the distance of their offices (though office-bound moral philosophers still have their place, of course).

The final point I will raise and discuss in this section is what we might call a skill model of ethical or moral expertise, rather than a problem-solving model.  This is a model discussed by Hubert Dreyfus.[25]  Dreyfus is not an especially clear writer, but it is useful to take the time to consider his ideas.  What he is responding to is what he calls the “intellectualist prejudice” that emphasises “moral judgement” rather than “spontaneous ethical comportment”.  According to Dreyfus this spontaneous ethical comportment is free of mental content and is an unreflective response to the current interpersonal situation.  He likens it to either the chess player or the car driver.  Success in ethics, for Dreyfus, is performative—it “is doing what those who already are accepted as ethical experts do and approve.”[26]

Dreyfus suggests that as one moves from a novice to an expert in any particular field, one passes through five stages of development.  (1) One first learns strict rules.  (2) As one begins to see the rules in context, through examples, these progress into less strict maxims or aspects.  (3) As these maxims become too numerous one develops plans based on goal-directed decision-making.  One consciously, in a detached manner, assesses the situation to decide on the plan to adopt, and attempts to suppress emotions that accompany the situations.  (4) One takes more notice of the emotions, and ceases to be so detached or reflective.  One stops looking for principles as guidance, and one “notices” or is “struck by” a certain plan in given situations.  One understands what is going on without conscious effort, but will still have to think about what to do.  (5) Eventually, one develops an immediate intuitive response to each situation.  One sees intuitively what to do, without conscious thought, without deliberation, and without applying rules or making judgements.

In Dreyfus’ view, when an ethical expert is faced with novel situations, he or she must resort to abstract principles.  Dreyfus thinks that examples of “lifeboat morality”[27] are of this type, and are not realistic problems—they are more akin to placing chess pieces on a chessboard in a way that would never show up in a real game.

When an ethical expert is faced with familiar but problematic situations, he or she does not “stand back and apply abstract principles,” but rather “deliberates about the appropriateness of his or her intuitions.”  If the expert is torn between two equally compelling decisions, he or she either (a) attempts to find a compromise (i.e. a third or additional option), or (b) delays and seeks more information.  That is, one does not attempt to analyse the contents of the black box that is one’s intuitions, but merely attempts to feed more factual information through it in the hopes that one may eventually find an acceptable course of action.  Dreyfus does not suggest what the ethical expert would do if compromise is not an option and time or more information fails to push one’s intuitions one way or the other—that is, if there continues to be ongoing internal conflict.

Dreyfus also tells us that two ethical experts can sometimes come to very different decisions in the same situation.  If this happens, Dreyfus thinks that (a) the experts should attempt to re-experience the chain of events that lead to their decisions, focusing on any possible missed details, and try to find alternative intuitive interpretations, or (b) engage in dialogue with those others who reached different conclusions, attempting to see things the other’s way.  But even after all this Dreyfus thinks that they may still not agree, and in that case they should merely understand and appreciate each other’s decision—they don’t need to reach agreement.

Maybe I am misunderstanding Dreyfus here, but all this hardly seems free of mental content.  True, in the ideal situation where an expert is faced with familiar and unproblematic situations, he or she can act spontaneously (and while this is certainly not free of mental content, it is arguably free of conscious mental content).  But Dreyfus readily admits of problematic situations—the ones we are really interested in when considering policy decisions and applied ethics—and there seems to be a lot of mental activity going on when faced with those situations.  I think Dreyfus would have to say that there is deliberation, but the deliberation is with respect to getting more information—about the background, possible ways of acting, or the content of other’s intuitions.  There is no deliberation as to the value or plausibility of the content of the intuitions.

At this point we might notice that there is some similarity here with Narveson’s objection (5), even though Narveson is still focusing just on judgements.  Dreyfus doesn’t seem particularly worried that the intuitions of different experts may conflict and point to different actions, or that there may even be irresolvable conflict within a single expert.  Narveson thinks that both types of conflict should be of great embarrassment for intuitionists.  Intrapersonal conflict doesn’t help one with deciding on one’s own course of action.  Interpersonal conflict is a big problem in the real world of interpersonal relationships.  This type of conflict can’t just be swept under the carpet, as Dreyfus does, by saying that it will all work out, or even if it doesn’t then it doesn’t really matter.  Merely appreciating and understanding each other and agreeing to disagree is not a realistic solution in many applied and social policy areas; a real decision and action one way or the other has to happen.

There is more to say about Dreyfus’ position (for example, one might wonder about how to determine the expert whom one copies—there seems to be a certain circularity and/or relativism), but I will stop here.  All I will add is that Singer’s position has an advantage over Dreyfus’ position in that it gives us additional resources for reaching a decision about action—one can do all that Dreyfus suggests regarding getting more information and making an effort to understand the other’s point of view, but then one can also do more.  The Singer view allows more transparency in decision-making, since it allows us to evaluate the intuitions that one has, not merely take them as unexaminable givens.  Moreover, as Tim Dare[28] argues when he considers Dreyfus’ position, success in ethics surely requires one to be able to tell others why one has acted as one has (while we generally don’t need to articulate these reasons in everyday and unproblematic situations, we are surely required to do this in more problematic professional settings and in public policy issues, particularly in a democracy, and it is often of great benefit in various less formal settings in between).  When intuitions are a black box this is not possible, or at least not as possible.  It is for this reason that Dare thinks that Dreyfus’ analogy between ethics and driving or chess breaks down—in driving or chess success does not depend on being able to explain the reasons for one’s actions to others.  And it is for this reason that I find Dreyfus’ position on ethical expertise unconvincing, and I am in favour of one that is essentially similar to Singer, Jamieson, and Nickel’s positions—moral or ethical expertise is possible, and the characteristics of a moral or ethical expert are essentially similar to those of an expert moral philosopher.

What I would strongly emphasise—not add—is that, to be a moral or ethical expert in some particular applied field—that is, be able to solve moral problems in that field—the expert moral philosopher should have appropriate applied factual knowledge of that field in which one is doing the applied decision-making, and one’s knowledge and skills should not merely be of argumentation and ethical theories.  One needs to have abilities and knowledge in reasoning and logic, an understanding of the meanings of moral concepts and the nature of ethics, knowledge of ethical theories and principles and how they may be variously applied, sufficient time to think, and a reasonable amount of neutrality.  But unless one has sufficient background knowledge of the relevant field, one cannot presume to be competent to solve moral problems within that field.  In this respect I think moral and ethical expertise needs to be somewhat qualified.  That is, one may be a moral or ethical expert with respect to, for example, medical issues, but not with respect to environmental issues (if one knows about medicine but does not know the first thing about environmental issues).[29]

 

4 Philosophers and decision-making

What I have been discussing here so far has been fairly abstract and at a high level of generality.  This is to be expected in a discussion about discussions in policy decision-making and applied ethics.  The point that I have got to so far is to have provided an account of the central components of expertise as a moral philosopher, and have argued, against various objections, that the expert moral philosopher has a better chance than most of being a moral or ethical expert.  In this final section I turn to a discussion of the place of the moral philosopher in applied ethics and public policy decision-making.

The first point to be made here is that decision-making, and contributing to decision-making, in a public and social context can take a number of forms.  The details of the contribution will in part depend on the particular society or aspect of society one is considering.  To give an exhaustive account of this will take me beyond the scope of this present work.  But I will make a few observations.  One type of contribution that moral philosophers typically already do is write books and articles, and attend and contribute at conferences.  Sometimes (rarely) these contributions get a wider public audience, sometimes these contributions are considered within the professional context, and sometimes (mostly) these contributions sink without a trace.  But once in a while philosophers’ writings change the way people think about moral problems, and genuinely aid public decision-making—think, for example, of Jeremy Bentham and J. S. Mill’s contributions.

The other main potential area of contribution is in the sphere of social decision-making, which typically involves committees or commissions or some type of formal or informal body that makes decisions or recommendations.  Crosthwaite suggests that there are two main models that may be adopted by these bodies.  The first may be thought of as a scientific model, where the assumption is that there is something to be discovered and the aim is to discover it.  A moral example of this is to attempt to find the morally right course of action or policy in a given situation.  The second model may be thought of as a political model, where it is the procedure itself that determines the answer.  If the body is a morally and procedurally justifiable body, and if its deliberations have been conducted in a procedurally appropriate way, then this makes its decisions correct, whatever those decisions are.  A plausible example of this is the question of who should govern, which is answered by the voting citizens in a democracy.  The same basic problem can be answered using either model (i.e., “is X morally right?” versus “should society permit X?”), although they may come to different conclusions, since the morally right action may be an action that should not be enforced by a particular society.

An arguable case example of each of these models is provided by a consideration of two British governmental working parties, both of which were chaired by philosophers.  R. M. Hare[30] compares and contrasts the respective styles of the working parties chaired by Warnock (which I have already discussed above) and Bernard Williams (which provided recommendations to the British government on obscenity and film censorship).  Hare makes the interesting observation that Warnock and her working party appeared to opt to look around at the conflicting opinions that were presented and find recommendations that would cause the least dissent.  Warnock’s report contains mostly affirmations without argument (i.e., it worked with intuitionist presuppositions about ethics), and has been less than helpful with respect to disputes that followed the publication of the report.  In other words this seems to fit best with the political model, in which the aim was to decide what society should permit regarding human fertilisation and embryology.  Hare contrasts this with Williams and his working party, which appeared to set out to find substantive arguments to conclusions that could rationally be defended—in other words the scientific model.  In contrast to the Warnock report, Williams’ report was far more successful at helping one understand the issues and helping one make up one’s own mind about the moral issues of obscenity and censorship.  Politically, however, the Warnock report has had far greater success than the Williams report, and had far greater chance of influencing and being acted on by the government.

Regardless of the model that is adopted by the particular body, Crosthwaite argues that not only can philosophers contribute to the decision-making of these bodies, but also that the body should carry out a procedure of moral analysis and reasoning similar to that taken by philosophers when they deliberate.  I now turn to what philosophers may contribute and what this procedure will look like.

Crosthwaite suggests that if we focus on the argumentative component of the skills and knowledge of the moral philosopher, then the moral philosopher’s contribution to policy decision-making is more likely to be with respect to the forms of debate than the substance of ethical judgement.  With this in mind, such a role is more like that of a facilitator or a moral cartographer who provides a map of the moral terrain—that is, sets out the positions on offer, along with the reasons for and against these positions.  The philosopher’s distinctive skills in clarification, fair and thorough presentation of various positions and opinions, and analysis in argumentation gives him or her a distinct advantage when it comes to organising and fitting together the information presented (Warnock and Williams are good examples of philosophers who took on chairing and facilitatory roles).  Given also that philosophers have particular expertise in articulation and clear and fair expression of positions, this suits the role of presenting findings and their rationale, either to the decision-making body or as a final representative of that body.

While Crosthwaite thinks that these components (argumentative and clarificatory skills) of the philosopher’s professional expertise should not be ignored, and can be extremely useful, she also thinks that the moral philosopher can potentially contribute more than merely acting as a facilitator or moral cartographer.  This is because, as she points out, philosophy students are criticised if they merely lay out the possible positions in an essay; philosophy students are required to also engage with the content of the debate itself, and develop a substantive opinion on the topic.  As I discussed in Section 2, moral philosophers will also have a critically examined moral perspective, and will have arrived at informed opinions on various moral matters.  This is especially so if, in the particular field of the moral problem under consideration, they have in addition relevant factual knowledge.

It is with this in mind that Crosthwaite addresses the question of whether consultant moral philosophers should engage in the debate in defence of a particular position or merely report on and facilitate moral debates.  Crosthwaite presents three main positions that the moral philosopher may adopt:

1.      Moral cartography:  Present a moral map of the various positions on offer and provide a “neutral” evaluation of these positions, without indicating or arguing which position the moral philosopher thinks is best.

2.      Expert judgement:  Present a reasoned argument for the position the moral philosopher thinks best, but needs not explain or evaluate alternative positions.

3.      A charted path:  Present explanations and evaluations of different moral positions on the issue, and indicate which position the moral philosopher thinks is best, along with the reasons why such a position is preferred.

Crosthwaite points out that which approach one ought take will depend on the context of the problem and those involved.  Philosophers may be involved either as (i) external consultants, or (ii) members of bodies making decisions or recommendations to policy makers on ethical issues.  As a member of a body making decisions or recommendations, the philosopher’s particular involvement will depend on the nature of the body and whether or not the philosopher is a member in his or her capacity as a moral philosopher or an ethical/moral expert.  As an external consultant the philosopher’s particular involvement will depend on what the committee wants of its consultants.  The committee must clarify whether it want its consultant to give moral cartography, expert judgement, or a charted path.  Crosthwaite argues that a charted path is typically the preferable option out of the three presented.

Firstly, she thinks that 2 (expert judgement) should be avoided.  This is on the grounds, firstly, that those presenting expert opinions, in almost any area, should also give supporting reasons that can be examined and evaluated, at the very least by peer review.  Giving a judgement without also giving sufficient reason for it is not appropriate in a decision-making body within a democratic society.  Secondly, there are practical considerations to do with clarity and understanding—giving one’s reasoning helps clarify the position, and the position may not be fully understood unless the reasoning is also understood.  For example, saying “X is wrong” needs spelling out with respect to how X is to be understood and interpreted, X’s context of occurrence, related factual, political, or ethical issues, societal values, and how strongly or in what way “wrong” is to be understood.  Thirdly, rejecting 2 is linked with rejecting the idea that moral judgements can be given without providing reasoning (such as the intuitionist or subjectivist models discussed and rejected above).  Crosthwaite comes to conclusions regarding the importance of reasoning in moral judgement that are similar to those I defend in Section 3 above, arguing that “moral judgement is a reason-governed activity”.[31]  I need not reiterate the substance of that debate.  Fourthly, the decisions need to be made by the appropriate bodies and not just moral philosophers, and the judgements of these appropriate bodies need themselves to be moral judgements; they should not merely cite the moral judgements of others.  This means that they should be given sufficient information to make their own moral judgements, and thus they need information about their moral options.

The question is then whether to have a neutral (1) or guided (3) map.  Crosthwaite rejects 1 for two reasons.  Firstly, it may well be that a neutral approach is not a real possibility, since one’s considered perspective will affect how one presents the positions.  Philosophical training aims for as much fairness as possible, in one’s consideration of views, but there are doubts whether one can ever be completely neutral and objective.  Being upfront about one’s own preferred position allows others to be aware of possible biases, and adjust accordingly.  But it is not sufficient just to say, “these are my positions, but I won’t say why”—it is too much like an argument from authority.  One needs to also explain why, and this suggests a guided rather than neutral approach.  Secondly, surely the moral philosopher should care about whether the decision-making body makes the right decision.  This means that he or she must be able to influence the decision-making body’s decision.  But this influence must itself be ethical and follow the proper process of the decision-making authority and also moral deliberation.

Crosthwaite makes two cautionary remarks alongside her recommendation of 3.  The first is the one that I have been emphasising throughout this essay—that philosophers may not be in possession of all the relevant facts to make an informed decision.  Crosthwaite makes two main suggestions.  The first is that even though philosophers may not have all the facts, they may still be able to work through many of the hypothetical possibilities of what the facts may turn out to be, and in this way set out and evaluate the options (this links in with the skill of broad vision that I discussed above).  The second is to suggest that philosophers may be better off as members of committees rather than as external consultants—in this way they have full access to all the information that the committee has.

The second cautionary remark is that, particularly with a complex moral problem, the mere fact that a moral philosopher prefers one moral option rather than another is likely to add weight to it.  Other decision-makers may not take the time to process the complex arguments leading up to the conclusion.  Even if the conclusion supported by the philosopher is the correct one, it may be a worry that it is accepted by other decision-makers for the wrong reasons.  A person who jumps to the conclusions, without following the reasoning, has missed an important component of the process of decision-making and judgement.  (As I see it, this may be a problem with any complex or technical component of a problem that a body is called on to work through.  There may well be just as many members who, for example, skip over the statistical or engineering mathematise as those who skip over the moral deliberations.  This doesn’t make it acceptable, but it does make it a potentially common problem.)  Crosthwaite suggests two ways to minimise or alleviate this potential problem: (i) having philosophers as committee members rather than external consultants forces committee members to engage in the moral debate to a greater degree, and (ii) we can emphasise and insist that the decision-making body engages in the moral deliberation process in a similar way as the philosopher did him or herself—by looking at the reasoning and engaging, in an interactive way, in moral debate and discussion to reach a judgement.

What this discussion leads us to is a situation where bodies making moral decisions or recommendations should have at least one moral philosopher, who is also a moral expert in that field, as a member of that body.  Singer argues an even stronger position when he suggests that moral decision-making bodies be made up of ethical experts.  He argues that (i) since we don’t have representatives of Catholics, Protestants, Jews, women, blacks, etc on expert bodies looking into fusion power, (ii) we have independent means of assessing ethical expertise, and (iii) there is no such thing as a universally accepted position within each of these above groups, then we shouldn’t have representatives of these above groups on bodies looking into ethical issues.  We should have ethical experts as members of bodies making recommendations or decisions on ethical issues.  This is not a case of elitism or a threat to democracy or pluralism; it is a recognition that experts in any area have a better chance than non-experts at making good decisions in that area.  Some moral philosophers may not be ethical experts, and some non-philosophers may be ethical experts, but all things being equal moral philosophers stand a better chance at being ethical experts than those from any other group.  We should recognise this and make use of the expertise of moral philosophers within policy deliberation and decision-making.

 

5 Conclusions

In this essay I have been looking at the relationship between moral philosophers, ethical/moral experts, and public policy decision-making.  I started out listing and discussing many of the main characteristics of moral philosophers, particularly and especially as these characteristics relate to abilities arguably useful in public policy decision-making.  I then moved into a discussion of the nature of ethical and moral expertise, and looked at a number of models of this.  I came out in favour of the problem-solving model, and defended it against a number of objections and alternative models.  On this model moral philosophers are more likely to be, though not exclusively, moral/ethical experts.  That is, moral philosophers are better, in general, at finding solutions to moral problems than non-philosophers.  This is because many of the central characteristics that are taught to philosophy students and emphasised in philosophical discourse are also characteristics that are especially useful for tackling moral problems.  And perhaps this is not all that surprising, since, as Singer points out, if this wasn’t the case we would have to wonder about the use of moral philosophy, period.

Finally, given this analysis of moral philosophers and moral/ethical experts, I raised the issue over whether, and in what capacity, moral philosophers can contribute to public policy decision-making.  I suggest that moral philosophers can contribute in a number of ways.  Firstly, their own research and publications can contribute.  Secondly, they can contribute by applying their distinctive skills in a facilitatory role in decision-making bodies.  Thirdly, they can contribute by giving their expert advice and opinions to decision-making bodies, in which they explain the various moral options, the strengths and weaknesses of these moral options, their own considered moral judgements, and the reasoning that supports that judgement.  Such judgements should not be considered unquestioningly authoritative, but should be considered an ideal deliberative model, which the decision-making body ought emulate to evaluate moral reasoning and engage in moral deliberation.  With this in mind it is best if the moral philosopher is a member of the deliberating body, who has complete access to the information and can guide the process of moral deliberation.  Such a body can use the ethical expertise of the moral philosopher in the same way that they may use the expertise of those from other professions, whether they are doctors, lawyers, scientists, or any other experts.

 

(12,471 words)

Bibliography

Avorn, J. (1982). A Physician’s Perspective. Hastings Center Report, 12 (3), 11-12.

 

Baier, A. (1988). Theory and Reflective Practices. In D. M. Rosenthal & F. Shehadi (eds.) Applied Ethics and Ethical Theory, (pp. 25-49). Salt Lake City: University of Utah.

 

Beauchamp, T. L. (1982). What Philosophers Can Offer. Hastings Center Report, 12 (3), 13-14.

 

Crosthwaite, J. (1995). Moral Expertise: A Problem in the Professional Ethics of Professional Ethicists. Bioethics, 9 (5), 361-379.

 

Dare, T. (1998). Virtue Ethics and Legal Ethics. Victoria University Law Review, 28, 141-155.

 

Dreyfus, H. (1990). What is Moral Maturity? A Phenomenological Account of the Development of Ethical Expertise. In D Rasmussen (ed.) Universalism and Communitarianism. Cambridge, MA: MIT.

 

Grassian, V. (1981). Moral Reasoning: Ethical Theory and Some Contemporary Moral Problems. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

 

Hare, R. M. (1988). Why Do Applied Ethics? In D. M. Rosenthal & F. Shehadi (eds.) Applied Ethics and Ethical Theory, (pp. 71-83). Salt Lake City: University of Utah.

 

Jamieson, D. (1988). Is Applied Ethics Worth Doing? In D. M. Rosenthal & F. Shehadi (eds.) Applied Ethics and Ethical Theory, (pp. 116-138). Salt Lake City: University of Utah.

 

Leiter, B. (2003). The Leiter Report: On Lawyers and Philosophers. Retrieved 30/12/2003 from the World Wide Web: http://webapp.utexas.edu/blogs/archives/bleiter/000602.html

 

Macklin, R. (1988). Theoretical and Applied Ethics: A Reply to the Skeptics. In D. M. Rosenthal & F. Shehadi (eds.) Applied Ethics and Ethical Theory, (pp. 50-70). Salt Lake City: University of Utah.

 

McNaughton, D. (1988). Moral Vision: An Introduction to Ethics. Oxford: Blackwell.

 

Miller, A. (2003). An Introduction to Contemporary Metaethics. Cambridge: Polity.

 

Narveson, J. (1988). Is There a Problem about “Applied” Ethics? In D. M. Rosenthal & F. Shehadi (eds.) Applied Ethics and Ethical Theory, (pp. 100-115). Salt Lake City: University of Utah.

 

Nickel, J. W. (1988). Philosophy and Policy. In D. M. Rosenthal & F. Shehadi (eds.) Applied Ethics and Ethical Theory, (pp. 139-148). Salt Lake City: University of Utah.

 

Noble, C. N. (1982). Ethics and Experts. Hastings Center Report, 12 (3), 7-9.

 

_____. (1982). Response. Hastings Center Report, 12 (3), 15.

 

Rachels, J. (1988). Can Ethics provide Answers? In D. M. Rosenthal & F. Shehadi (eds.) Applied Ethics and Ethical Theory, (pp. 3-24). Salt Lake City: University of Utah.

 

_____. (2003). The Elements of Moral Philosophy (4^th ed.). Boston: McGraw Hill.

 

Singer, P. (1972). Moral Experts. Analysis, 32, 115-117.

 

_____. (1982). How Do We Decide? Hastings Center Report, 12 (3), 9-11.

 

_____. (1988). Ethical Experts in a Democracy. In D. M. Rosenthal & F. Shehadi (eds.) Applied Ethics and Ethical Theory, (pp. 149-161). Salt Lake City: University of Utah.

 

Swanton, C. (2003). Virtue Ethics: A Pluralist View. Oxford: Oxford University.

 

Warnock, M. (1985). A Question of Life: The Warnock Report on Human Fertilisation and Embryology. Oxford: Blackwell.

 

Wikler, D. (1982). Ethicists, Critics, and Expertise. Hastings Center Report, 12 (3), 12-13.