 So, Rawls has suggested that there's a decision procedure for ethical theory. And this crucially depends upon his notion of a competent moral judge. Well, what is a competent moral judge? To be clear, a competent moral judge is not somebody who's judging you or judging another person. Rather, a competent moral judge is determining whether an act is moral or immoral. This person is not an expert in moral theory, doesn't have an extensive education in philosophy. Rather, this is just somebody who goes through day to day life and can accurately determine what is moral and what is not moral. Rawls gives us a set of conditions for a competent moral judge. The first is that a competent moral judge has to have average intelligence. It might seem strange, but Rawls is not requiring that the competent moral judge be of superior intelligence. The competent moral judge can't have below average intelligence, to be sure. But a competent moral judge requires only average intelligence. I think maybe what Rawls is getting at here is that morality is not the game of the expert or the advanced person society, not the privileged view. Rather, morality is the game, is the province, is the purview of just about anybody. The second requirement is that the competent moral judge be informed. That is to say that the competent moral judge has a pretty good idea of what's happening in the world, has an idea of history, has a rough idea of politics, economics, has some information about every part of how the world works. I think the idea that Rawls is getting at here is that the competent moral judge is going to be making judgments about people within the world. And if the judge is ignorant of what the world is like, well then those judgments will likely be in ignorance. The next condition for Rawls is that a competent moral judge is reasonable. And he has his own conditions for reasonable, namely that a judge is skilled and a doctor of reason, can see both sides of an issue, has an open mind and is self-aware. What Rawls is getting at here is that you have somebody who is willing to consider evidence and reach a conclusion. In contrast, somebody who is not reasonable will not be willing to listen to evidence. They just reach a conclusion and they stick to it no matter what. The next condition is sympathetic. A sympathetic person is one who can imagine what it's like to be somebody who knows the situation or has that sort of direct experience. Even if the moral judge doesn't agree with the actions, the moral judge can at least understand why that person has performed those actions. The moral judge can understand the circumstances that person is in. I think what Rawls is getting at here is a competent moral judge is going to make decisions about whether a person's actions are moral or immoral. And if you're going to do that, you have to understand what it's like to be that person. So here's a question. Rawls has given us conditions for what it means to be a competent moral judge. Somebody who knows the difference between right and wrong. Do you agree with Rawls? If you disagree with Rawls, then either you think something like one or more of these conditions needs to be removed or that he missed something that one or more conditions need to be added. So if you agree with Rawls, okay, if you disagree with Rawls, what needs to be added on or what needs to be taken away?