There is a longstanding debate within applied ethics about the possibility of ethical expertise. Peter Singer and Paulina Sliwa, among others, have argued that the content-knowledge of moral philosophers gives them ethical expertise and thereby moral authority. Bernard Williams, Raimond Gaita and others, in contrast, contend that moral authority is not derived from content-knowledge and that there is no such thing as an ethical expert. However, in this debate the concept of “moral authority” is often left underexamined. It is sometimes assumed as a synonymous with ethical expert or an as attribute that the expert has by virtue of being an expert. This paper examines what moral authority is and argues that maintaining a distinction between expertise and authority is not only important for understanding what ethics is but is useful for setting the parameters for what applied ethics and ethicists do.
Tuesday July 7, 2026 3:00pm - 3:55pm AEST Steele-3143 Staff House Rd, St Lucia QLD 4067, Australia
