Academics must gain something from spending ages thinking and studying ethics, be it understanding of the arguments, knowledge of more arguments or something else. I think this puts them in a better position than others and should make others tentative in saying that they’re wrong.
Btw, I agree with this in the sense that I’d rather have a random ethicist make decisions about an ethical question than a random person.
I’d definitely be interested to hear more :)
Great! I’m writing a text about this, and I’ll add a comment with a reference to it when the first-draft finished :)
Your explanation for disagreeing with certain academics is that they have different starting intuitions. But does this account for the fact that academics can revise/abandon intuitions because of broader considerations. Even if you’re right, why you think your intuitions are more reliable than theirs?
A reasonable question, and I’ll try to give a better account of my reasons for this in my next comment, since the text may help in giving a picture of where I’m coming from. I will say in my defence though, that I do have at least some epistemic modesty in regards to this—although not as much as I think you would think is the reasonable level. While what I think of as probably being the best outcomes from an “objective” perspective corresponds to some sort of hedonistic utilitarianism, I do not and do not intend to ever work towards outcomes that don’t also take other ethical concerns into account, and hope to achieve a future that that is very good from the perspective of many ethical viewpoints (rights of persons, fairness, etc) - partly because of epistemic modesty.
Btw, I agree with this in the sense that I’d rather have a random ethicist make decisions about an ethical question than a random person.
Great! I’m writing a text about this, and I’ll add a comment with a reference to it when the first-draft finished :)
A reasonable question, and I’ll try to give a better account of my reasons for this in my next comment, since the text may help in giving a picture of where I’m coming from. I will say in my defence though, that I do have at least some epistemic modesty in regards to this—although not as much as I think you would think is the reasonable level. While what I think of as probably being the best outcomes from an “objective” perspective corresponds to some sort of hedonistic utilitarianism, I do not and do not intend to ever work towards outcomes that don’t also take other ethical concerns into account, and hope to achieve a future that that is very good from the perspective of many ethical viewpoints (rights of persons, fairness, etc) - partly because of epistemic modesty.