Ethical expertise: The good agent and the good citizen
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Ethical expertise: The good agent and the good citizen David Archard
© Springer-Verlag GmbH Deutschland, ein Teil von Springer Nature 2020
Abstract I consider whether political deference by a citizen within a liberal democracy to moral experts is morally problematic. I compare and contrast deference in the political and personal domains. I set to one side consequentialist worries about political deference and evaluate its possible intrinsic wrongness, expressed as a worry that deference is inconsistent with the grant to individuals of the power exercised in a democratic vote, just as personal deference is inconsistent with the grant of a power of moral choice. I consider several possible versions of such inconsistency: that a vote to delegate decision-making to experts is self-defeating, that it is unfree, or is blind to the significance of exercising a political choice, or is a denial of democratic equality. I conclude that the worries are ill-founded and that political deference is not in itself morally troubling. Keywords Deference · Expertise · Delegation · Authority · Democracy · Freedom · Equality
1 INTRODUCTION Is it morally problematic for citizens to defer to moral experts? In other words, is it or is it not alright for citizens in a liberal democratic society to allow some set of individuals, identified as moral experts, to make decisions in respect of matters that would otherwise properly be determined by the democratic decision-making of the whole citizenry? The question appears neglected, inasmuch as the issue of
D. Archard () School of History, Anthropology, Philosophy and Politics, Queens University Belfast, 25 University Square, Belfast, BT7 1NN, UK E-Mail: [email protected]
D. Archard
ethical expertise is principally evaluated as a matter of personal decision-making; or as a feature of local medical ethics committees. Deference is acting upon the advice given by another as an expert, and if moral deference is wrong there is said to be a problem of asymmetry (see Howell 2014). What we can call personal deference on moral matters is characterized as morally asymmetrical with deference on non-moral matters. It is thought wrong to defer on the former but not on the latter. In respect of what we can call political deference citizens often defer to experts on questions of intelligence, security, and macro-economic decision-making. Such deference is, I think, judged morally unproblematic, yet deference on a moral question might not. The question then is whether the problem of asymmetry afflicts political as much as personal deference and does or does not do so for the same kinds of reason. I want to sketch the reasons one might think political deference morally troubling, and, in doing so, consider what light is shed on the putative wrongness of personal deference. The following points provide clarifications of what I am interested in: 1. The question at hand is what, if anything, is wrong with an individual citizen voting to delegate some matters to an expert committee. These are matters whose
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