The Nature and Value of Bioethics Expertise

In this article, I address the extent to which experts in bioethics can contribute to healthcare delivery by way of aid in clinical decision-making and policy-formation. I argue that experts in bioethics are moral experts, in that their substantive moral views are more likely to be correct than those of non-bioethicists, all else being equal, but that such expertise is of use in a relatively limited class of cases. In so doing, I respond to two recent arguments against the view that bioethicists are moral experts, one by Christopher Cowley and another by David Archard. I further argue that bioethics experts have significant additional contributions to make to healthcare delivery, and highlight a hitherto neglected aspect of that contribution: amelioration of moral misconception among clinicians. I describe in detail several aspects of moral misconception, and show how the bioethicist is in a prime position to resolve that sort of error.