Are you Serious?

Abstract

Extreme specialization will require us to replace generic conceptions of autonomy with discipline-specific methods of assessing whether one has matters in hand, is acting in earnest, and can be taken seriously. The uniform personality structures predominantly discussed in recent moral philosophy will not do; however, solutions to the problems of cross-disciplinary quality control will have to figure into those assessments. This sort of quality control cannot be managed by having experts explain themselves to nonexperts, but checking for refractive equilibrium across areas of expertise may do much of the job.