Ethicist

An ethicist is one whose judgement on ethicsand ethical codeshas come to be trusted by some community, and (importantly) is expressed in some way that makes it possible for others to mimic or approximate that judgement. Following the advice of ethicists is one means of acquiring knowledge(see argument from authority).

The term juristdescribes an ethicist whose judgement on lawbecomes part of a legal code, or otherwise has force of law. This may be due to formal (de jure) statesanction.

Some jurists have less formal (de facto) backing by an ethical community, e.g. a religious community. In Islamic Law, for instance, such a community following (taqlid) a specific jurisprudence (fiqh) of shariahmimics judgement of a prior jurist. Catholic Canon Lawhas a similar structure. Such a jurist may be a theologianor simply a prominent teacher. To those outside this tradition, the jurist is simply an ethicist who they may more freely disagree with, and whose input on any issue is advisory. However, they may find it hard to avoid a fatwaor excommunicationor other such shunningby the religious community, so it may be hard advice to ignore.

Outside the legal professionsand spiritual traditions, ethicists are usually considered to be either philosophersor more practical mediatorsof disputes. Indeed, views of ethics that are not deemed to be useful in resolving actual disputes are usually frowned upon as ideology. Modern ethicists often take the view that ethics is only about such resolution.

The list of ethicistsdemonstrates the extreme range of people who have made, or contributed to, ethical debates. It also demonstrates that not all individuals who do so can be considered to be good moral examplesby all.

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It uses material from the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethicist Wikipedia article Ethicist.