On Moral Experts

A St Cross Special Ethics Seminar. Professor John-Stewart Gordon focusses on the question of whether moral experts must follow their own expert advice in order to remain experts. The lively topic of whether moral expertise and moral experts exist has been vividly discussed in recent contributions in ethics and, particularly, in bioethics. I hold the view that moral expertise exists and that some moral philosophers can be considered as moral experts in the full sense, who have moral expertise, while some are not. In this talk, however, I focus on the question of whether moral experts must follow their own expert advice in order to remain experts. This is an important issue because my analysis will respond to the vital question of whether a "moral expert" has (necessarily) both cognitive and practical skills in order to be considered a proper moral expert.