Download full text
(1.518Mb)
Citation Suggestion
Please use the following Persistent Identifier (PID) to cite this document:
https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-94395-9
Exports for your reference manager
Liberal-democratic values and philosophers' beliefs about moral expertise
[journal article]
Abstract In recent decades, the discipline of bioethics has grown rapidly, as has the practice of ethical consultation. Interestingly, this new recognition of the relevance of moral philosophy to our daily life has been accompanied by skepticism among philosophers regarding the existence of moral expertise o... view more
In recent decades, the discipline of bioethics has grown rapidly, as has the practice of ethical consultation. Interestingly, this new recognition of the relevance of moral philosophy to our daily life has been accompanied by skepticism among philosophers regarding the existence of moral expertise or the benefits of philosophical training. In his recent article in Bioethics, William R. Smith suggested that this skepticism is rooted in philosophers' belief that moral expertise is inconsistent with liberal-democratic values, when in fact they are compatible. In this paper, we provide a unique opportunity to empirically examine Smith's observation by utilizing and extending global data on philosophers' beliefs about moral expertise, involving 4087 philosophers from 96 countries. Our findings support Smith's theoretical observation and show that societal levels of support for liberal-democratic values are associated with greater skepticism about moral expertise. We suggest that these findings might be explained by the cognitive process of motivated reasoning and an invalid inference of "is" from "ought." Consequently, the potential tension between moral expertise and liberal-democratic values is invalidly used for rejecting the existence of moral expertise, while its main and valid implication is for how moral expertise should be applied in liberal-democratic settings.... view less
Keywords
ethics; bioethics; philosophy; morality; cultural difference; intercultural comparison; democracy; international comparison; motivation; cognition; EVS
Classification
Philosophy, Ethics, Religion
Free Keywords
experimental philosophy; liberal-democratic values; moral expertise; motivated reasoning; Joint EVS/WVS 2017-2022 Dataset (ZA7505 v1.0.0)
Document language
English
Publication Year
2023
Page/Pages
p. 551-563
Journal
Bioethics, 37 (2023) 6
Issue topic
Moral Expertise
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1111/bioe.13171
ISSN
0269-9702
Status
Published Version; peer reviewed
Licence
Creative Commons - Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0