Towards a Phenomenology of Ethical Expertise

It is argued that phenomenology has much to contribute to the study of ethics: by returning to the phenomenon of ethical experience & endeavoring to describe it, it is possible to reconstruct the process by which ethical conduct is produced. An attempt is made to unearth the morally neutral process of acquired expertise & delineate its structure, then reveal how this expertise figures in a phenomenology of ethical life. Two processes of skill acquisition are explored phenomenologically -- chess playing & driving. It is shown how the acquisition of expertise progresses through a novice stage, to an advanced beginner, through competence & proficiency, & finally to expertise. The implications of this phenomenology of expertise for ethical experience are discussed in relation to recent work by Jurgen Habermas, Charles Taylor, Carol Gilligan, & Jean Piaget. It is concluded that even if there are claims on people as rational moral agents, acting on such claims cannot be shown to be superior to involved ethical comportment by asserting that such claims are the consequence of a development that renders explicit the abstract rationality implicit in context-dependent ethical comportment. 19 References. W. Howard