Negotiations over professional boundaries are often contests about controlling technical expertise and authority. Less is known about the role of moral judgments in such contests because well-trained professionals often silence their moral commitments or engage moral debates outside the boundaries of their profession. Drawing on an ethnographic study of a science laboratory at the forefront of moral controversy, this article shows how professionals manage moral challenges by reconfiguring their conventional domain of expert authority to include moral as well as technical expertise. Scientists drew on their plural moral views to develop, apply, and mobilize abstract knowledge about morals as resources to claim authority in debates over the moral definition of their work. Collective learning and collaboration ensured the cohesion of the professional community throughout the process of developing authority despite continued moral pluralism. By unpacking one mechanism for the pursuit of moral authority, the study elaborates our understanding of the moral foundations of professionalism and of the emergence of morally complex work activities.

关于专业界限的谈判通常是关于控制技术专业知识和权威的竞赛。人们对道德判断在此类竞赛中的作用知之甚少，因为训练有素的专业人士通常会沉默自己的道德承诺，或在其职业范围之外进行道德辩论。本文以道德争议最前沿的科学实验室的人种学研究为基础，展示了专业人士如何通过重新配置其传统的专家权限以包括道德以及技术专长来应对道德挑战。科学家利用其多元化的道德观来发展，应用和动员有关道德的抽象知识，以此作为在对其作品的道德定义进行辩论的过程中要求权威的资源。尽管继续存在道德多元化，但集体学习和协作确保了在发展权威的整个过程中专业团体的凝聚力。通过揭示一种追求道德权威的机制，本研究阐明了我们对专业精神的道德基础以及道德上复杂的工作活动的出现的理解。