Ethics and Surgery


In my recent review of McCumber the question of philosophy as a "second-order" discipline came up. McCumber thinks, and I agree, that philosophers should do first-order work, and write about ethics itself, rather than limiting themselves to teaching the logic or the grammar of ethics.
 

David Velleman:

I agree with Gerald Dworkin and Jason Stanley that moral philosophers are not "better than the average person in coming to correct answers about first-order moral matters".....

The point is that expertise in critically examining your deliberations, though useful, is not the same as expertise in carrying out those deliberations, which (as Jerry put it, and Jason seconded) is likely to require "sympathetic feelings, experience with the subject matter, and intuitive insight".

While I agree that first-order ethics can not be scientized the way second-order ethics can, I don't think that the separation should be as clear as Velleman makes it. The presumption should be that a philosophical (second-order) ethicist should be at the very least bright normal in first-order ethics. Ethics is a practical discipline like surgery, and while second-order textbook knowledge of surgery has great value for first-order practitioners, an autonomous second-order textbook-only science of surgery, uninformed by experience, would be a monstrosity. Second-order ethics should be a handmaid of first-order ethics, and since ethical behavior is not a difficult kind of performance (as in music or sports -- or surgery) of which some people are incapable, second-order ethicists should be expected to have "expertise" at first-order ethics too. And just as surgery is usually taught by the case-study method, ethics should probably also be taught through the detailed examination of a range of actual cases, starting with the routine and moving toward the difficult.

In sports there are a few wheelchair-bound coaches, and there are many excellent coaches who were not great performers. But ethical behavior is not a special skill, but something which is expected of everyone. Velleman's formulation seems to leave open the theatre-of-the-absurd scenario of Gandhi flunking an ethics class taught by the Marquis de Sade.

Originally at:
 http://www.adamkotsko.com/weblog/2006/02/ethics-and-surgery.html

 

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