Ethics Expertise: History, Contemporary Perspectives, and Applications / Edition 1

by Lisa Rasmussen

Overview

Section I examines historical philosophical understandings of expertise in order to situate the current institution of bioethics. Section II focuses on philosophical analyses of the concept of expertise, asking, among other things, how it should be understood, how it can be acquired, and what such expertise warrants. Finally, section III addresses topics in bioethics and how ethics expertise should or should not be brought to bear in these areas, including expertise in the court room, in the hospital room, in the media, and in making policy. 2. A GUIDED HISTORICAL TOUR As Scott LaBarge points out, Plato’s dialogues can be viewed as an extended treatment of the concept of moral expertise, so it is fitting to begin the volume with an examination of “Socrates and Moral Expertise”. Given Socrates’ protestations (the Oracle at Delphi notwithstanding) that he knows nothing, LaBarge observes that it would be interesting to determine both what a Socratic theory of moral expertise might be and whether Socrates qualified as such an expert. Plato’s model of moral expertise is what LaBarge calls “demonstrable expertise”, which is concerned mainly with the ability to attain a goal and to explain how one did it. The problem with this account is that when one tries to solve the various problems in the model – for example, allowing that moral expertise is not an all-or-nothing skill – then one is immediately faced with the “credentials problem”. As LaBarge puts it, “. . .

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781402038198
Publisher:	Springer Netherlands
Publication date:	10/19/2005
Series:	Philosophy and Medicine , #87
Edition description:	2005
Pages:	279
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.13(h) x 0.03(d)

Table of Contents

Introduction: In Search of Ethics Expertise.- A Guided Historical Tour.- Socrates and Moral Expertise.- Aristotle’s Moral Expert: The phronimos.- Hume on True and False Philosophy.- Moral Expertise: A Millian Perspective.- The Ineffable and the Incalculable: G.E. Moore on Ethical Expertise.- Pragmatism and Ethical Expertise.- Contemporary Perspectives.- Expert Moral Choice in Medicine: A Study of Uncertainty and Locality.- Societal Consensus and the Problem of Consent: Refocusing the Problem of Ethics Expertise in Liberal Democracies.- Ethical Expertise, Maternal Thinking, and the Work of Clinical Ethicists.- Contemporary Applications.- The Roles of Scientific and Normative Expertise in Public Policy Formation: The Anthrax Vaccine Case.- Philosophers Return to the Agora.- Ethical Expertise in the Clinical Setting.- Bioethical Expertise in Health Care Organizations.- The Expert Ethics Witness as Teacher.

Editorial Reviews

From the reviews:

"The essays in this collection represent both a summary of the debate about expertise in medical ethics and also take the argument a little further. ... Ethics Expertise is a solid contribution to the literature in this area. It is an important topic and these papers help to advance the debate." (Christian Perring, Metapsychology Online Reviews, July, 2006)

From the Publisher