Moral Expertise

Abstract: Current philosophical trends in North America are again raising the issue as to whether or not there can be ‘ moral experts’. An expert is defined here as one who predicts and explains better than the layman m a particular domain on the basis of his specialized underlying knowledge of it This analysis is then applied to the domain of morality. Special attention is given to the claim that moral philosophers are professionally more capable of critically thinking through the nature of moral problems. It is argued that philosophers tend to neglect the area of actual argumentation about specific moral issues, and that it is here, at the point of contact with living moral experience and empirical research into it that the possibility of ‘ moral expertise’ lies.