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30 Res Publica 1 (2024)

handle is hein.journals/respub30 and id is 1 raw text is: Res Publica (2024) 30:1-9 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11158-023-09651-x Philosophy, Policy, and Moral Expertise Jakob Elsterl • Cathrine Holst2 Accepted: 2 October 2023 / Published online: 2 February 2024 ©The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V. 2024 What characterizes the role of moral and political philosophers in contemporary governance? And what ought their role to be? Should we see philosophers in these areas as some kind of moral experts? If so, what kind of expertise are we talking about, and does the possession of such expertise imply that moral and political phi- losophers, as well as moral experts more generally, can legitimately be granted a special authority in the formulation of public policy? These questions touch upon core philosophical issues concerning what consti- tutes political authority, political competence, quality of government, and demo- cratic legitimacy, and are topical in a time when public criticism of expert power and 'elites' has intensified in some corners, and some scholars call for the 'democra- tization of expertise' (Weingart 1999; see also Fischer 2009; Krick 2021), while oth- ers call for a greater scope for expert judgment in policy-making processes and even in decision-making (e.g. Sunstein 2016; Caplan 2007; Brennan 2016). From history, we know that several philosophers have been consulted by rulers and governments for advice, from Aristotle to Machiavelli and Locke (Glendon 2011). Historically, the philosophers themselves have also been preoccupied with how to conceive of the place of philosophers in political life, starting with Plato's famous argument for a government by philosopher kings in The Republic. Still, even if the political role of moral and political philosophy is often touched upon and sometimes studied and explicitly addressed also in recent philosophical and political science scholarship (for references, see Hegstad, Hedlund and Holst in this issue), contributions are scattered, and a number of questions merit further inquiry. Importantly, it is notable that philosophical discussions of experts' moral authority and philosophers' role in policy-making often take place in one of two contexts: first, in the context of a general discussion of the role of experts in pol- icy development, and second, in the context of a discussion about the nature of E Jakob Elster jakob.elster@nchr.uio.no Cathrine Holst cathrine.holst@ifikk.uio.no Norwegian Centre for Human Rights, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway 2 Department of Philosophy, Classics, History of Art and Ideas, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway I_) Springer