The Problem of Expertise

I have been thinking a lot lately about the problem of expertise. By the problem of expertise, I mean how people who know better should relate to those who don't. Whether you are a physician or a physicist, this issue comes up a lot. People want the opinions of educated people -- pundits of various stripes proliferate -- but they do not always follow those opinions in their personal lives. Further, nearly every controversial scientific issue today involves some element of the knowers trying to impose their views on the know-nothings (or at least those who know significantly less). How should those experts approach others? What is the relevance of their special knowledge in the world?

The purpose of this post is to examine the meaning of expertise and its purpose in society. At the end, I also propose a solution to help experts deal with the lay public in a way that doesn't inspire acrimony.

For intelligent, educated people expertise is a problem. Many people reading this blog have suffered through an overwhelming amount of education. By virtue of this education, they have gained knowledge and skills that are tantamount to magic to the uninitiated. By virtue of their special skills, these experts are separated -- socially divided -- from the lay public. The problem of expertise is not that this special knowledge is undesirable. Special knowledge is both socially useful and personally satisfying. Rather the problem of expertise is a social problem, namely how those who know better should relate to those who don't.

People don't like to be governed, don't like to be told what to do, don't like a know-it-all. There is no need to belabor this subject. It is a cliche, but for experts it also a regular source of conflict with family, friends, and strangers. When a physician see someone engaging in unhealthy behavior, her impulse is to say: "You do realize what the consequences of this will be, don't you? You realize the self-destruction you're engaging in?" The physician is probably correct. She has seen the pathological slides, read the papers, and seen similar cases in clinic. On the other hand, the likely response in the poorly behaving person is annoyance if not rage: "How dare you treat me like a child? How dare you suggest that I am unhealthy?" The recipient of the criticism is also right. The physician is likely unfamiliar with the extenuating circumstances that resulted in that behavior. Furthermore, negative behaviors are not clinical destiny. Certain habits make disease more likely, but they do not usually guarantee that disease will occur.

How is this conflict between the two to be resolved? How should an experts relate to others who do not share their expertise? I argue that the problem of expertise is soluble, but that it requires dividing expertise into two separate sets of knowledge. Only one of them is true expertise -- although many assume that one implies the other.

The first type of expertise is expertise in the sense most people use the word. I will call this descriptive expertise. A descriptive expert has special knowledge about reality that is not generally distributed throughout the public. The physician understands the physiology of the body, the functions of different organ systems, and the molecules involved in facilitating life processes. The geologist understands the movements of rocks over long time scales; the physicist understands mechanics of moving bodies and the components of matter; the economist understands the behavior of prices as a consequences of changes in supply and demand. (That their expertise is limited by what we collectively know about these disciplines is irrelevant. A limited expert still knows a great deal more than the lay person.) The descriptive expert is an individual most qualified to answer inquiries into matters of fact.

The second type of expertise is expertise in the implications of facts. I will call this normative expertise. A normative expert understands facts as per descriptive expertise, but they also claim to understand the implications of those facts for people's lives. The normative expert judges human behavior or political policy (which is human behavior in aggregate) based on their perception of the logical consequences of those behaviors/policies vis-a-vis accepted facts. Their facts provide an ethical yardstick for guiding wise behavior. The normative expert is an individual who answers inquiries into matters of ethics and politics.

Before I raise too many eyebrows, let me argue two points with respect to normative expertise. First, this archetype is not irrelevant because an astonishingly large number of experts of the first type claim expertise of the second type -- at least with respect to their domain of understanding. Global warming scientists make claims not only on matters of fact -- global warming exists, expect temperature rises of X degrees, etc. -- but on matters of policy -- Kyoto is good, accomodation strategies are unwise, etc. Physicians make claims about facts -- trans-fats are bad for you -- and on what law should be -- trans-fats should be banned. Economists mix statements on how markets work -- increased demand will raise prices for oil -- with statements about equity -- it is unfair for oil companies to make so much money.

I am not suggesting that all experts do this or that some of them do it all the time. What I am suggesting is that the cross-over of descriptive expertise into normative expertise is quite prevalent. This is understandable. Descriptive experts -- including scientists -- are model-builders. They claim (whether this claim is warranted or not is another issue) predictive power over their model. They are also people, and people have principles and opinions. It is difficult to resist the temptation to mix one's opinions with one's perception of the facts.

The second point I would make is that -- in spite of the claims of some practitioners -- there is no reason for us to believe that normative expertise exists. Allow me to defend this proposition.

No matter how expert, no one has access to perfect information about what makes another person happy. Happiness is a non-transitive property of human life. Some may be perfectly happy working a minimum wage job their whole lives and shopping antique fairs on the weekend. Some will only be happy -- and maybe not even then -- living in luxury on 5th Ave. A child with terminal cancer can be happy after a day's play; a professional athlete who is the focus of public adulation may not be. Because happiness is not transitive -- what makes one person happy may not make another person happy -- all normative statements are necessarily circumscribed. When a normative expert claims that a particular behavior is wise, he predicates that claim on what he perceives as good -- usually an extension of what makes him happy.

You might respond: the expert could just ask. They could survey the individual to determine what makes her happy. Then the behavior that results in the greatest happiness could be established. Setting aside the issue of whether reliable information could be acquired in this manner -- people are not in my experience reliable witnesses as to what makes them happy -- I argue that getting this information is impossible.

Let's take the example of an individual. Say I am someone's physician. We are having an argument over whether or not they should smoke. Now I, as a physician, know for certain that smoking will increase their risk for a variety of very serious medical disorders. What I do not know are their reasons for smoking. It is very likely that they are physically addicted to nicotine. It is also very likely that there are underlying psychological factors such as responding to stress or the desire to fit into a social group. These encourage the person to make a poor health choice. It is unlikely that I will be able to enumerate much less understand all of these factors. I am not that person. And the relative weight of these factors figures into that person's decision whether or not to smoke. It figures into their decision how much to smoke. How much smoking is OK for that person? The calculation of what makes that person happy includes factors that are shielded from me as a physician. I cannot speak to these factors. What I can do is make clear in explicit terms what the likely consequences of their actions will be, but after that I can only leave them to weigh the consequences and the benefits as they see fit.

Don't think that is a good example? Consider a patient dying of cancer. They are likely in a great deal of pain. I can detail to them their treatment options. I can compare those options with means of limiting their pain. But I cannot truly understand their pain, so I cannot make the decision of whether to fight for them. It is the nature of subjective experience that we cannot make normative decisions for others. I might add that this is the core principle behind the idea of patient autonomy: the idea that a physician can help inform the patient but cannot make their medical decisions for them. It also illustrates a problem with normative expertise. You cannot claim normative expertise even when dealing with a single individual because you don't know their preferences precisely.

The problem of information about preferences becomes even more dramatic -- and fatal to normative expertise -- when we consider individuals in aggregate. Consider the example of the supermarket. Everyday (or every week) people go to the supermarket to purchase the food that they would like to eat. Could this system of supermarkets be ably supplanted by a normative expert -- a sort of benevolent dictator of food distribution? To compare the relative success of these two system, let's define success as individuals getting the food that they want to eat each day. To establish what people want, the dictator sends surveys to individuals about what food deliveries they would like on each given day. The dictator arranges for the production of these foods by purchasing the appropriate amounts from the particular suppliers. What would happen to such a system in the real world? First many individuals would change their minds about what they wanted during the course of the day. That would render the survey ineffective at establishing their preferences. Even if surveying was performed more regularly, you get into a problem of food production. How many potatoes should we make? How much do people like potatoes? Potatoes take time to produce, and rapid changes in individual preference cannot result in instantaneous changes in food delivery. Furthermore, there is a problem of payment. Let's say that under the benevolent dictator scenario, the individual turns over whatever money they were going to spend on food to the expert in return for food stuffs. The problem is that food preferences are dissociated from price. Say more people want chicken over a particular month. The supermarket changes the prices to accommodate for increased demand, bringing the quantity demanded in line with the quantity supplied and preventing shortages. A benevolent dictator cannot respond to changes in demand with changes in price, and even if he could it wouldn't be as quick as in the price system. This is the information function of price system. Prices carry information as to people's preferences for goods and attempts to collect this information through means other than prices leads to collosal waste and inefficiency. No person or group of people can accomplish this information distribution function as quickly and effectively as prices do. (For more information on the information function of prices, read I, Pencil by Leonard Read.)

Now, you may think that my examples of the limits of information are irrelevant to problems of normative expertise in our society. No one is advocating (anymore) that food be distributed by a benevolent dictator. However, consider global warming. Many have argued as a global warming abatement strategy that we impose emissions caps. The problem with these caps is that they divorce the distribution of the license to emit from the relative preferences of the individuals doing the emitting. All individuals want to use energy, but you have no idea how much they want to emit. Maybe it is more desirable to one person whereas another would agree to go without. Any entity distributing such licenses to emit would lack the information necessary to make that decision -- information about relative preferences. The benefit of a price system is that it establishes relative preference via who is willing to pay the most. Those who are willing to pay the most can emit the most. (As an aside, this is why I think a carbon tax is a far more efficient way to regulate carbon emissions than a cap system.) Now there are some ways to put the price system back into the cap policy. You could have a cap-and-trade market or a public auction. This would reintroduce the concept of relative preference, but note that it also limits the powers of the normative expert. The expert no longer can dictate the relative value of carbon emissions; they can no longer dictate who should and should not emit.

In the above paragraphs, I argue that the normative "expert" lacks the necessary information with regards to preferences to make informed judgments. This is the first problem with normative expertise, but there are many others. The Right regularly argues against normative expertise by arguing against descriptive expertise. They doubt the ability of the expert in understanding the facts and producing models with predictive capacity. (I discussed this in detail here.)

Another problem with the normative expert is that they are necessarily use their own ethical principles in measuring the relative value of two scenarios. People differ with respect to wants and needs. I argued above that a benevolent dictator lacks the necessary information for informed judgment, but this assumes that the dictator is benevolent, i.e. makes the decision that most people want. On the contrary, the normative expert might be determined to impose their minority principles on others. In this case, the normative expert is predicating their expertise on the inherent rightness of their values. Establishing the rightness or wrongness of facts is pretty easy; establishing the rightness or wrongness of different principles is much more difficult. You get into the same information problem as above. What might be a good principle for you may not be for me.

The purpose of this argument is to illustrate that while descriptive expertise certainly exists, normative expertise is much more questionable.

To extend this line of reasoning, I also argue that the problem that most members of the public have with science is their perception that scientists often pretend to normative expertise. Not only do people perceive an element of bullying in this pretense, they intuitively grasp the shaky ground on which the assumption of such expertise rests. Scientists and other experts would receive a much better reception if they stuck with descriptive expertise rather than indulging in normative claims.

Let's set aside arguments of the degree to which particular scientists indulge in this behavior. None of us is entirely innocent of this pernicious vice, and it is a pernicious one. Theoretical overreach into areas not within your knowledge is one thing. It can be entirely solipsistic; no one else need be involved. That is just scientism. Claiming normative expertise is not only pernicious because it rests on an unfounded claim, it judges others by an unfair standard. It also has an annoying habit of supporting arguments about how other people's rights should be abridged. "We know better" often morphs into "others should be stopped."

As a practical matter, let's focus on how to divorce descriptive from normative expertise. This is admittedly a fine line to draw for oneself, and it takes effort and practice to walk it. I am hardly innocent of injecting my opinions into statements of fact on these pages.

How do this work in practical terms? I am in a sense an expert -- though this is a relative statement because I still have a great deal of education left to endure. In my interactions with family members, they often inquire about my medical opinion, unschooled though it may be. However, in providing them answers to their questions I try to speak only to matters of fact -- this behavior, this illness or this intervention is likely to produce the following results -- rather than matters of personal principle. I would do well to remember my personal state. Anyone who knows me well knows that my personal life is a matter of continuing travesty, an ongoing road-show of farcically poor judgment. I am barely qualified to take care of myself, much less inflict my value judgment on others.

I urge scientists and other experts to adopt a policy of divorcing normative and descriptive expertise. As aspiring experts it is wise for us to use considerable caution in implying that our expertise vis-a-vis facts implies a better judgment with respect to values. Considerable acrimony between experts and the public would be avoided if the experts more carefully distinguished between descriptive and normative expertise, and knew well which one they possess.