We seem less likely to endorse moral expertise than reasoning expertise or aesthetic expertise. This seems puzzling given that moral norms are intuitively taken to be at least more objective than aesthetic norms. One possible diagnosis of the asymmetry is that moral judgments require autonomy of judgement in away that other judgments do not. However, the author points out that aesthetic judgments that have been ‘borrowed’ by aesthetic experts generate the same autonomy worry as moral judgments which are borrowed by (...) moral experts. The author then explores various approaches to accepting the testimony of moral experts and concludes that the asymmetry may best be explained by (1) the conditions for moral expertise being more difficult to satisfy than those of aesthetic expertise and (2) the intuitive greater seriousness of accepting the moral judgments of others, since moral norms are generally viewed as more binding than aesthetic norms. (shrink)

Objectives: To summarise the types of case brought to the Clinical Ethics Committee of the National Hospital of Norway from 1996 to 2002 and to describe and discuss to what extent issues of information/communication have been involved in the ethical problems. Design: Systematic review of case reports. Findings: Of the 31 case discussions, (20 prospective, 11 retrospective), 19 cases concerned treatment of children. Twenty cases concerned ethical problems related to withholding/withdrawing of treatment. In 25 cases aspects of information/communication were involved (...) in the ethical problem, either explicitly (n = 3) or implicitly (n = 22). Conclusion: Problems related to information/communication may underlie a classic ethical problem. Identification of these “hidden” problems may be important for the analysis, and hence, the solution to the ethical dilemma. (shrink)

Professional philosophers are members of bioethical committees and regulatory bodies in areas of interest to bioethicists. This suggests they possess moral expertise even if they do not exercise it directly and without constraint. Moral expertise is defined, and four arguments given in support of scepticism about their possession of such expertise are considered and rejected: the existence of extreme disagreement between moral philosophers about moral matters; the lack of a means clearly to identify moral experts; that expertise cannot be claimed (...) in that which lacks objectivity; and that ordinary people do not follow the advice of moral experts.I offer a better reason for scepticism grounded in the relation between moral philosophy and common-sense morality: namely that modern moral philosophy views even a developed moral theory as ultimately anchored in common-sense morality, that set of basic moral precepts which ordinary individuals have command of and use to regulate their own lives.Even if moral philosophers do nevertheless have a limited moral expertise, in that they alone can fully develop a set of moral judgments, I sketch reasons – grounded in the values of autonomy and of democracy – why moral philosophers should not wish non-philosophers to defer to their putative expertise. (shrink)

We congratulate Fox and her colleagues (2007) for contributing to the published empirical literature on ethics consultation in United States hospitals. Their study demonstrates the continued wide v...

The debate about what constitutes the discipline of ethics and who qualifies as an ethics consultant is linked unavoidably to a debate that is potentiated by the reality of a rapidly changing and high-stakes health care consultation marketplace. Who we are and what we can offer to the moral gesture that is medicine is shaped by our fundamental understanding of the place of expert knowledge in the transformation of social reality. The struggle for self-definition is particularly freighted since clinical ethics (...) consultation aspires to be more than academic contemplation. Two recent books (Ethics Consultation by John La Puma and David Schiedermayer and The Health Care Ethics Consultant: A Practical Guide, edited by Francoise Baylis) exemplify the two most popular but most widely divergent positions on these issues. We argue that while useful, neither book addresses fully the particular and distinct role of the professional ethicist. (shrink)