Abstract
Empirical research suggests that professional ethicists do not exhibit morally better behaviour than other academic professionals (Schwitzgebel and Rust (2010, 2014)). These findings are problematic if professional ethicists are to be considered moral authorities, i.e. those who are mandated—by their (moral) expertise—to give advice on moral matters, and to whose views on such matters we ought to give significant weight. In this chapter, I propose that being a moral authority requires not only knowing the relevant moral facts, but also applying these facts in practice (i.e. acting morally). More specifically, I argue that moral authorities are not hypocrites. That is, if one is a moral authority, one rarely (or never) acts hypocritically—against one’s own good advice to others—but instead, generally, follows one’s own (good) moral advice. As such, those that regularly fail to display morally good behaviour (which they recognize as morally good and prescribe to others) are not moral authorities. This argument rests on two core claims which I defend throughout the chapter. First, if one is a moral authority, then one is a trustworthy source of reliable moral advice. Second, if one is a trustworthy source of reliable moral advice, then one is not a hypocrite. The arguments for the latter rest on considerations about systematicity of moral motivation and the non-trustworthiness of hypocrites.
“I saw a mink yesterday … wearing fur!
If the mink population simply cannot
be bothered to set an example, I see
no reason why we should either.”
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Notes
- 1.
Supererogatory actions are those that “go above and beyond” the call of duty. In other words, these are actions which are morally good but not morally required. For example, daily volunteering in an animal shelter is commendable and morally good but it is not something that is morally required. Failing to do so does not constitute a moral failing.
- 2.
I shall delay a more detailed explication of what it takes to be a moral authority until later in the paper. It is worth, however, mentioning the essence of my meaning now. By “moral authority” I mean someone who is a trustworthy source of moral advice. Being a moral authority involves not only having a substantial amount of moral knowledge, but also having a certain social role—one dispenses, and can be relied upon to dispense, good advice about morality. I do not understand “moral authority” in the strong sense of Linda Zagzebski (see her 2012), according to which we are rationally obliged to defer to moral authorities regardless of what other evidence is available to us. My understanding of “moral authority” maps closely onto the meaning of both “expert-as-advisor” (as contrasted with “expert-as-authority”) as this term is used by Jennifer Lackey (see her 2018) and “practical moral expert”, as this phrase is defined by Guidry-Grimes and Watson in the introduction of this volume. The other types of moral expertise the latter mention (performative and academic expertise) need not involve being a moral authority.
- 3.
Hypocrites are also often ready to criticize and condemn those that fall short of their demands while not extending such criticisms to themselves for failing in similar ways. I shall further discuss my understanding of hypocrisy below.
- 4.
- 5.
Someone who acts voluntarily is not compelled or coerced to so act. So, someone who acts against her own advice because, for instance, she suffers from a mental disorder, or is manipulated or forced by another person to so act is not a hypocrite on my account.
- 6.
- 7.
For my purposes, I also do not need to engage with has been called the credentials problem (e.g. Cholbi (2007), Vogelstein (this volume)) pertaining to identifying moral experts.
- 8.
See Driver 2006 for a similar point.
- 9.
It would be somewhat odd to have a notion of “moral authority” (or any other moral category) that does not and perhaps cannot apply to any psychologically realistic agents. However, if one insists that a moral authority must be a perfect moral authority, this will not affect the conclusion of my main argument: that moral authorities are not hypocrites. This is because someone who is a perfect moral authority would also be arguably morally perfect, and therefore not a hypocrite. (This understanding of a moral authority would, however, make it more difficult for such authorities to exist. As I explain above, whether such authorities exist is not the main concern of this chapter.)
- 10.
Such characterization is not revisionary. As Cholbi notes in his (2007), “there is general agreement that a moral expert is someone who very reliably, though not necessarily infallibly, provides correct moral advice in response to moral situations and quandaries” (324). There is a similar agreement on moral experts having a mandate or legitimacy to speak on moral matters—moral authorities ought to be trusted (compare, for example, Driver 2006, also referenced in Cholbi 2007). Although these authors talk of moral experts rather than of moral authorities, all moral authorities are moral experts, as I shall go on to argue below. Thus, if moral experts have these properties, then, a fortiori, moral authorities will have them too.
- 11.
This does not mean that people cannot be moral authorities after their deaths or if they somehow corrupt or tarnish their previous good legacies as moral authorities. In the first case, one’s body of moral work and advice can be still “used” after one’s death. For instance, people still read, engage with and are guided by Seneca’s ethical considerations. Seneca can thus be still considered to be a moral authority. As long as one was a moral authority while being alive, and one’s advice is still being used in an appropriate way, this is enough for one to be a moral authority. As for the second set of cases, envisage someone who is a moral authority at one stage of her life but later on intentionally starts dispensing moral untruths, defending morally abhorrent views, etc. In that case, one might argue that there is enough of a break or a split between the person who previously dispensed the reliable moral advice and the person who is now dispensing the abhorrent views so as to consider the former as a moral authority still (again, as long as the original body of moral expertise is used in an appropriate way, as a source of good advice, and legitimately so). In cases where such a break is absent, this might cast doubt over one previously being a moral authority at all. If I go from condemning acts of ritual murder to defending such brutalities without any mitigating circumstances, this might raise concerns about the soundness of my previous judgments if the premises and reasoning on which I built the previous judgments also give rise to my new abhorrent set of views.
- 12.
Jamie Watson has raised two concerns with this claim. First, that it presupposes motivational internalism, and second, that it overstates the frequency with which reasons to act and reasons to advise coincide. Concerning the first claim, I do not say that people who make moral judgements must be motivated to act on these judgements, but only that people who are already motivated by certain moral reasons (because they advise people to act on them) will be motivated to act on them—I am appealing to a certain systematicity to motivation, rather than its inevitable presence.
Regarding the second claim, Watson points out that a clinical ethics consultant would advise a medical team that it is morally inappropriate to give blood products to a Jehovah’s Witness who refuses them, even though that consultant might rightly think that not giving blood products is, in general, a bad idea. We might wonder: do not one’s reasons to act and reasons to advise come apart in such a (not uncommon kind of) case? I do not think so. One’s reasons for giving blood products (that it would save a life, that it would contribute to a person’s health, etc.) are reasons for advising that one gives blood products, and one’s reasons not to give blood products (that it is incompatible with the patient’s faith, that the patient refuses such treatment) are reasons to advise that one does not give blood products. The case is interesting not because one’s reasons to act and to advise diverge, but because the views of the patient can weigh strongly against using effective methods of maintaining the patient’s health.
- 13.
The same reasoning applies to someone who is merely disposed to provide reliable moral advice but is somehow incapacitated or otherwise barred from doing so, and thus does not provide such advice. In other words, if one is (merely) disposed to be a trustworthy source of reliable moral advice, then one is not a hypocrite (still). Why? Simply because someone who is disposed to be a trustworthy source of reliable moral advice must have the same attributes as someone who is, in fact, such a trustworthy source of good moral advice. A potential moral authority will also have the relevant moral expertise and will also be motivated to be moral (as shown by her knowing the relevant moral facts in the first place). If someone is disposed to dispense good moral advice (and would do so if circumstances allowed), this is evidence that she is sensitive to moral reasons in favour of giving out the advice, but also to the reasons in favour of whatever the advice is about (as they are the same reasons). And, if someone is systematically responsive to moral reasons such that she is poised to give out the good advice, it is plausible that her systematic response to these moral reasons will not manifest merely in being disposed to give out such moral advice, but also in her (generally) following the good advice she is disposed to give. Finally, if she generally follows her own good advice that she is disposed to give, then she is not a hypocrite.
- 14.
You might wonder what “often” comes to; that is, at what point does hypocritical behavior make one a hypocrite. I want to leave this question largely open, except to say that the nature of my arguments does not support a strong conclusion that moral authorities literally never act hypocritically. My arguments do suggest, however, that moral authorities do not habitually act hypocritically, that hypocrisy is not a character trait of moral authorities, that such authorities do not regularly act hypocritically, etc. Indeed, I am tempted to think my arguments suggest that moral authorities act hypocritically only very rarely, if at all.
- 15.
Of course, there are some exceptions to this. One might know a lot about a particular area because it has been somehow drilled into one, without one having any significant interest in learning the relevant information. My point here concerns those who acquire the relevant knowledge in a (more) voluntary manner, as I take to be the case for experts. Perhaps, however, this is too quick. Laura Guidry-Grimes has pointed out to me that much of our even specialized knowledge is the result of involuntary knowledge-gathering that results from our upbringing in a certain culture. Might not experts in a certain area be so involuntarily? And, if so, might they not fail to care about the subject they know so much about? Perhaps it is true of many areas of (specialized) knowledge that someone may have come about this knowledge involuntarily, and fails to care much about it. Three points should be considered in reply, however.
First, for this knowledge to rise to that of expertise strongly suggests a level of agential investment in the topic—one must seek out such knowledge, actively research it, etc. Second, even if one does not originally care about a certain topic, becoming an expert in it can (and often does) cause one to care about it. Consider those who find themselves in rather specialized careers without explicitly planning to do so, but who become deeply involved in their jobs after gaining substantial knowledge about the relevant areas. Third, the case of moral knowledge is special. There are societal pressures to become experts in certain areas, even if one does not care about those areas. Thus, consider a student whose parents pressure her into becoming a lawyer or doctor, even though she has little interest in these fields. We do not live in a culture, however, that pressures people into becoming moral experts. Those that do attain this status, then, likely do so precisely because they care.
Guidry-Grimes also points out that there are different types of caring—one may be invested in a topic intellectually, emotionally, or agentially. She suggests that agential investment might be required for moral knowledge—one can become aware of nuanced moral distinctions and subtle moral facts only by actively engaging in the moral project. This tallies well with my approach to the topic. As I go on to point out, moral authorities must have certain capacities to attain their moral knowledge. These very same capacities are developed and exercised precisely by being moral.
- 16.
For some related points, please see Sect. 7.5.
- 17.
See Arjo, this volume.
- 18.
I do not here commit to any particular account of trust or trustworthiness. As far as I can ascertain, the points I make below hold true regardless of the specific ways these notions are spelt out. See McLeod (2015) for an overview of trust and trustworthiness. Following Jones (1999), McLeod distinguishes “risk-assessment” views, according to which someone puts her trust in someone by relying on that person (on the assumption that the risk of so relying on her is low because it is in the trustee’s own interest to be reliable), from “will-based” accounts, according to which someone is trustworthy only if she shows goodwill to the trustee. Hardin’s encapsulated interest account (2002) is an example of the former, while Baier (1986) defends a version of the latter. On both such accounts, and others, a moral authority is trustworthy only if she can be relied upon as a source of reliable moral advice. The considerations below show that a hypocrite cannot thus be relied upon.
- 19.
This remains so even if one has a dispositional view of moral authority, according to which a moral authority is someone who is disposed to be a trustworthy source of reliable moral advice. If someone acts against the advice she is simply disposed to give, she undermines even her potential trustworthiness. This is for the same reasons which I discuss below—such an agent is either irrational or disposed to act on untrustworthy motives, and is disposed to break commitments she has made. As I shall go on to explain, such features render a person untrustworthy.
- 20.
Instrumental reasons are reasons which help show the most effective means of executing one’s plans. For example, if you want to fly to Europe from America, that there is a cheap flight from Orlando to London shows that one effective and efficient means of doing so is taking that cheap flight.
- 21.
Conversely, just because someone does follow her own advice (and so does not act hypocritically), this is not evidence that she is reliable in the relevant way: an astrologist may do all the things she recommends, but this does not imply expertise or authority.
- 22.
This implies that someone who ought to be treated as a moral authority is not a moral authority if others have not given her an appropriate social standing. This has consequences for thinking about epistemic injustice. If an ethicist is not trusted on moral matters because of her gender or race, for example, this would mean she is not a moral authority. This is, of course, consistent with the view that she should be a moral authority.
- 23.
The same idea applies even on the dispositional conception of moral authority. Even if one is merely disposed to give out moral advice (but does not actually do so), one’s advice would not be trusted by those aware of one’s immorality.
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Acknowledgments
I would like to thank the editors of this volume, Laura Guidry-Grimes and Jamie Watson for their extremely helpful comments on this chapter. I would also very much like to thank Stephen Kearns for his numerous suggestions on different drafts of this chapter.
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Herdova, M. (2018). Can Moral Authorities Be Hypocrites?. In: Watson, J., Guidry-Grimes, L. (eds) Moral Expertise. Philosophy and Medicine, vol 129. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92759-6_7
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