Moral Expertise, Testimony, and Deferral

Abstract

In everyday life we often seek out experts in various fields in order to meet our numerous needs and wants. Whether they are doctors, mechanics, or electricians, we defer to their judgement regarding the wellbeing of our bodies, our cars, and our homes. Given the caveat that these individuals are knowledgeable, reliable, and honest, it is considered uncontroversial, and in most cases rational, to do so without questioning their judgement. Deferring to experts in these cases can save us time and toil insofar as we can offload the manual and epistemic labor involved in learning these skills for ourselves. A problem that has arisen in the metaethics literature is whether we should similarly defer regarding morality. Should one offload the epistemic labor involved in deliberating about morality oneself by believing and acting upon the moral claims of a moral expert? Intuitions are divided as to which side, pro or con, we should fall under. The claim is that if deferral to moral expertise does not differ in any epistemic or morally relevant way from deferral to non-moral expertise, then doing so is legitimate. If we are to propose that one should not do so in the case of morality, while simultaneously holding that it is perfectly fine to do so in the non-moral realm then we must provide a reason as to why this is the case. This has been dubbed the asymmetry problem. In the moral expertise literature, those who think an asymmetry exists such that we have reason not to defer to moral experts are known as pessimists. The opposingly connoted optimists are those who think there is either no reason not to defer or positive reasons for doing so. Arguments from both sides further diverge regarding their justifications into either epistemic or moral arguments. The former concerns whether there lies an obstacle in meeting the conditions necessary for moral testimony to be a source of knowledge, while the latter concerns whether there is a moral norm or principle, beyond the epistemic, which makes it unacceptable to exploit moral expertise as a resource. In this thesis I will be providing a moral pessimistic argument for why we may have reason, in some cases, to not defer to moral expertise. I take the asymmetry to lie in a prescription of moral agency that in order to be good moral agents we are required to learn how to deliberate on our own and in deferring we are offloading an opportunity to do so. In deferring one is not provided any reason as to why an action is correct or incorrect or a circumstance is good or bad. Even if one is provided with a reason, in deferring one fails to grasp the relation between a moral proposition and the reasons why it is true. This is to say that in deferring one fails to gain moral understanding. Moral understanding is not only helpful in developing the epistemic abilities necessary for good moral agency, but is instrumentally valuable for reliably acting correctly in the future. In chapter one I consider the metaethics of moral expertise. Particularly the things that must be metaphysically and epistemically true of morality for moral expertise to conceptually exist at any level. Upon accepting these, I define what I take moral expertise to consist in. Following this I consider some epistemic arguments and provide why I have opted for moral arguments instead. Chapter two will consist of considering and attempting to refute moral arguments apart from my own, particularly a prevalent optimistic argument from David Enoch in his “A Defence of Moral Deference” (2014). I will then explicate and define what moral understanding is and why it is a reason against deference. The final chapter will be composed of rebuttals to critiques against my view. One of the stronger critiques I will be replying to is that there may be cases where one could defer and deliberate after the fact in order to gain the advantages of both deferral and moral understanding. I conclude by proposing ways in which moral experts and their expertise remain useful for the moral deliberation of others despite the relegated status my view places them in.