Jakob Elster

Well-functioning modern democracies depend largely on expert knowledge and expert arrangements, but this expertise reliance also causes severe problems for their legitimacy. Somewhat surprisingly, moral and political philosophers have come to play an increasing role as experts in contemporary policymaking. The paper discusses different epistemic and democratic worries raised by the presence of philosopher experts in contemporary governance, relying on a broad review of existing studies, and suggests measures to alleviate them. It is argued that biases philosophers are vulnerable to may contribute to reducing the quality of their advice, and that the characteristics of philosophers’ expertise, and controversies around what their competences amount to, make it hard to distinguish proper from less proper philosopher experts. Reliance on philosopher experts may also intensify democratic worries not least due to the depoliticization pressures that the introduction of ethics expertise tends to give rise to. Still, philosophers have competences and orientations that policy discussions and democratic deliberations are likely to profit from. Worries about philosopher experts may moreover be mitigated by means of a proper design of expert arrangements. Confronted with the genuine epistemic risks and democratic challenges of contemporary governance any quick fix is obviously unavailable, but when institutionalized in the right way philosophers’ involvement in present-day policymaking bears significant promise.

James Madison wrote, 'Had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates, every Athenian assembly would still have been a mob'. The contributors to this volume discuss and for the most part challenge this claim by considering conditions under which many minds can be wiser than one. With backgrounds in economics, cognitive science, political science, law and history, the authors consider information markets, the internet, jury debates, democratic deliberation and the use of diversity as mechanisms for improving collective decisions. At the same time, they consider voter irrationality and paradoxes of aggregation as possibly undermining the wisdom of groups. Implicitly or explicitly, the volume also offers guidance and warnings to institutional designers.

The involvement of ethicists, philosophers or others who might qualify as ‘moral experts’ in policy-development, where they are sometimes, typically as members of a committee, given an advisory role, is often seen as problematic, for several reasons. First, there may be doubts as to the very existence of moral experts, and it may be hard to know who the moral experts are. Next, even if these problems are solved, giving experts a special role in policy-making might be problematic from a democratic point of view, if it involves politicians deferring to the moral judgements of experts. The paper considers possible replies to this problem of moral deference. One reply is that moral deference is unnecessary, because even moral non-experts are well equipped to assess the arguments offered by moral experts; I argue that this reply underestimates the complexity of moral arguments. Another reply is that if moral experts are simply given the ‘technical’ role of clarifying which concrete positions that follow from the values which decision-makers already accept, deference is not problematic. I will argue that this reply underestimates how a given set of moral values underdetermines which concrete positions follow from it. Finally, I will consider and defend the reply that since policy decisions are subject to a requirement that they be justified within the limits of public reason, and since these limits include a requirement that the justification be accessible, moral experts are barred from providing policy advice which rests on too complex moral arguments.

Den offentlige beslutningsprosessen i bioetiske spørsmål i Norge preges av stor bruk av etiske komiteer. I denne artikkelen reiser jeg spørsmålet om hvordan denne bruken kan begrunnes. Mens en god offentlig prosess krever at det finnes organer som tar seg av nemndenes drøftende og informasjonsgivende funksjon, er det mindre sikkert hvorvidt vi trenger deres rådgivende funksjon, som det til en viss grad er mulig å skille fra de to andre funksjonene. Nemndenes rådgivende funksjon kjennetegnes ved at deres råd gis en spesiell vekt i høringsrunder, uavhengig av argumentene bak rådene, og slik må det også være hvis man skal ha rådgivende nemnder overhodet. Men det er uklart hva som rettferdiggjør at nemndenes råd gis spesiell vekt.Jeg ser på to måter å svare på dette spørsmålet på, enten med utgangspunkt i en moralsk epistemologi som sannsynliggjør at nemndene finner moralsk riktige svar, eller med utgangspunkt i en teori om politisk legitimitet som tilsier at nemndenes konklusjoner har politisk legitimitet. Jeg drøfter og forkaster to former for moralsk epistemologi; én som ser på nemnder som en samling etikkeksperter som kan resonnere seg frem til riktig svar, og én som ser på nemnder som en samling vismenn med spesiell moralsk innsikt. Mer plausibelt er en mellomløsning, som ser på nemndsmedlemmene som de kompetente dommere i en reflektiv likevektprosess. I en slik prosess spiller imidlertid skjønnsvurderinger en uunngåelig rolle, og jeg argumenterer for at beslutninger basert på subjektive skjønnsvurderinger ikke vil være politisk legitime. I den grad nemnder bidrar til politisk legitime beslutninger, er det mer fordi de bidrar til å oppdage løsninger som av uavhengige grunner har politisk legitimitet, enn at de selv gir slik legitimitet.

Recently, Julian Savulescu and Guy Kahane have defended the Principle of Procreative Beneficence (PB), according to which prospective parents ought to select children with the view that their future child has ‘the best chance of the best life’. I argue that the arguments Savulescu and Kahane adduce in favour of PB equally well support what I call the Principle of General Procreative Beneficence (GPB). GPB states that couples ought to select children in view of maximizing the overall expected value in the world, not just the welfare of their future child. I further argue that Savulescu and Kahane's claim that PB has significantly more weight than competing moral principles, such as GPB, lacks justification. A possible argument for PB having significant weight builds on a principle of parental partiality towards one's own children. But this principle does not support PB; it supports a Principle of Sibling-Oriented Procreative Beneficence (SPB), according to which parents selecting a child should maximize the benefit of all their children. Indeed, PB itself will in some cases be self-effacing in favour of SPB

In his book Moral Dimensions. Permissibility, Meaning, Blame , T.M. Scanlon proposes a new account of permissibility, and argues, against the doctrine of double effect (DDE), that intentions do not matter for permissibility. I argue that Scanlon's account of permissibility as based on what the agent should have known at the time of action does not sufficiently take into account Scanlon's own emphasis on permissibility as a question for the deliberating agent. A proper account of permissibility, based on the agent's actual beliefs, will allow us to revise the principle Scanlon proposes for regulating the use of violence in war, and to show that, while the DDE as such might be invalid, its focus on intentions does point toward an important element which Scanlon's proposal lacks, viz. the requirement that the agent believes that her actions will have certain consequences and can be justified for that reason

“Wrongful life” claims are made by persons born with a disease to the effect that they should not have been born. I ask whether we can say that if someone claims that he would have been better off if he were not born, he would be better off if he died. I examine the relationship between the following propositions:(1) It would have been better for me if I were not born.(2) My life (as a whole) is not worth living.(3) It would be better for me if I died.(4) I desire to die.(5) I should commit suicide/ ask for euthanasia.If a person claims that he would have preferred not to be born, this normally implies that it would be better for him if he died. But this does not necessarily imply that he desires to die, or that he should commit suicide.

It is common in moral philosophy to test the validity of moral principles by proposing counter-examples in the form of cases where the application of the principle does not give the conclusion we intuitively find valid. These cases are often imaginary and sometimes rather ‘outlandish’, involving ray guns, non-existent creatures, etc. I discuss whether we can test moral principles with the help of outlandish cases, or if only realistic cases are admissible. I consider two types of argument against outlandish cases: 1) Since moral principles are meant for guiding action in this world, cases drawn from other worlds are irrelevant. 2) We lack the capacity to apply our intuitive moral competence to outlandish cases. I argue that while the first approach is importantly flawed, the second approach is plausible, not because our moral competence per se is limited to cases from this world, but because we lack the capacity to imagine outlandish cases, and we cannot apply our moral competence to a case we fail to imagine properly