Clinical Ethics Consultants are not "Ethics" Experts-But They do Have Expertise.
The attempt to critique the profession of clinical ethics consultation by establishing the impossibility of ethics expertise has been a red herring. Decisions made in clinical ethics cases are almost never based purely on moral judgments. Instead, they are all-things-considered judgments that involve determining how to balance other values as well. A standard of justified decision-making in this context would enable us to identify experts who could achieve these standards more often than others, and thus provide a basis for expertise in clinical ethics consultation. This expertise relies in part on what Richard Zaner calls the "expert knowledge of ethical phenomena" (1988, 8).
University of North Carolina, Charlotte, North Carolina, USA lrasmuss@uncc.edu.
Lisa M
LM
Rasmussen
D026688:Bioethical Issues; D017041:Ethics Committees; D028741:Ethics Committees, Clinical; D033061:Ethics Consultation; D004995:Ethics, Professional; D006801:Humans; D012945:Social Values
clinical ethics consultation; ethics expertise; will to believe