Reflective equilibrium is a state of
balance
Balance or balancing may refer to:
Common meanings
* Balance (ability) in biomechanics
* Balance (accounting)
* Balance or weighing scale
* Balance as in equality or equilibrium
Arts and entertainment Film
* ''Balance'' (1983 film), a Bulgaria ...
or coherence among a set of beliefs arrived at by a process of deliberative mutual adjustment among general principles and particular
judgements. Although he did not use the term, philosopher
Nelson Goodman
Henry Nelson Goodman (7 August 1906 – 25 November 1998) was an American philosopher, known for his work on counterfactuals, mereology, the problem of induction, irrealism, and aesthetics.
Life and career
Goodman was born in Somerville, Ma ...
introduced the method of reflective equilibrium as an approach to
justifying the ''principles'' of
inductive logic
Inductive reasoning is a method of reasoning in which a general principle is derived from a body of observations. It consists of making broad generalizations based on specific observations. Inductive reasoning is distinct from ''deductive'' rea ...
(this is now known as Goodman's method). The term ''reflective equilibrium'' was coined by
John Rawls
John Bordley Rawls (; February 21, 1921 – November 24, 2002) was an American moral, legal and political philosopher in the liberal tradition. Rawls received both the Schock Prize for Logic and Philosophy and the National Humanities Medal in ...
and popularized in his ''
A Theory of Justice
''A Theory of Justice'' is a 1971 work of political philosophy and ethics by the philosopher John Rawls (1921-2002) in which the author attempts to provide a moral theory alternative to utilitarianism and that addresses the problem of distrib ...
'' as a method for arriving at the content of the principles of justice.
has pointed out that there are many interpretations of reflective equilibrium that deviate from Rawls' method in ways that reduce the cogency of the idea.
Among these misinterpretations, according to Hübner, are definitions of reflective equilibrium as "(a) balancing theoretical accounts against intuitive convictions; (b) balancing general principles against particular judgements; (c) balancing opposite ethical conceptions or divergent moral statements".
Overview
Rawls argues that human beings have a "sense of
justice
Justice, in its broadest sense, is the principle that people receive that which they deserve, with the interpretation of what then constitutes "deserving" being impacted upon by numerous fields, with many differing viewpoints and perspective ...
" that is a source of both moral judgment and moral motivation. In Rawls's theory, we begin with "considered judgments" that arise from the sense of justice. These may be judgments about general moral principles (of any level of generality) or specific moral cases. If our judgments conflict in some way, we proceed by adjusting our various beliefs until they are in "equilibrium", which is to say that they are stable, not in conflict, and provide consistent practical guidance. Rawls argues that a set of moral beliefs in ideal reflective equilibrium describes or characterizes the underlying principles of the human sense of justice.
For example, suppose that Zachary believes in the general principle of always obeying the commands in the
Bible
The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus ...
. Suppose also that he thinks that it is not ethical to
stone
In geology, rock (or stone) is any naturally occurring solid mass or aggregate of minerals or mineraloid matter. It is categorized by the minerals included, its Chemical compound, chemical composition, and the way in which it is formed. Rocks ...
people to death merely for being
Wicca
Wicca () is a modern Pagan religion. Scholars of religion categorise it as both a new religious movement and as part of the occultist stream of Western esotericism. It was developed in England during the first half of the 20th century and w ...
n. These views may come into conflict (see Exodus 22:18 versus John 8:7). If they do, Zachary will then have several choices. He can discard his general principle in search of a better one, such as obeying only the
Ten Commandments
The Ten Commandments (Biblical Hebrew עשרת הדברים \ עֲשֶׂרֶת הַדְּבָרִים, ''aséret ha-dvarím'', lit. The Decalogue, The Ten Words, cf. Mishnaic Hebrew עשרת הדיברות \ עֲשֶׂרֶת הַדִּבְ ...
; or modify his general principle by choosing a different translation of the Bible, or letting Jesus' teaching from John 8:7 "If any of you is without sin, let him be the first to cast a stone", override the Old Testament command; or change his opinions about the point in question to conform with his theory, by deciding that witches really should be killed. Whatever the decision, he has moved toward reflective equilibrium.
Use in Rawls's political theory
Reflective equilibrium serves an important justificatory function within Rawls's political theory. The nature of this function, however, is disputed. The dominant view, best exemplified by the work of
Norman Daniels and
Thomas Scanlon, is that the method of reflective equilibrium is a kind of
coherentist method for the epistemic justification of moral beliefs. However, in other writings, Rawls seems to argue that his theory bypasses traditional
metaethical questions, including questions of moral epistemology, and is intended instead to serve a practical function. This provides some motivation for a different view of the justificatory role of reflective equilibrium. On this view, the method of reflective equilibrium serves its justificatory function by linking together the cognitive and motivational aspects of the human sense of justice in the appropriate way.
Rawls argues that candidate principles of justice cannot be justified unless they are shown to be stable. Principles of justice are stable if, among other things, the members of society regard them as authoritative and reliably comply with them. The method of reflective equilibrium determines a set of principles rooted in the human sense of justice, which is a capacity that both provides the material for the process of reflective equilibration and our motivation to adhere to principles we judge morally sound. The method of reflective equilibrium serves the aim of defining a realistic and stable social order by determining a practically coherent set of principles that are grounded in the right way in the source of our moral motivation, such that we will be disposed to comply with them. As Fred D'Agostino puts it, stable principles of justice will require considerable "up-take" by the members of society. The method of reflective equilibrium provides a way of settling on principles that will achieve the kind of "up-take" necessary for stability.
Reflective equilibrium is not static, though Rawls allows for provisional fixed points; it will change as the individual considers his opinions about individual issues or explores the consequences of his principles.
Rawls applied this technique to his conception of a hypothetical
original position from which people would agree to a
social contract
In moral and political philosophy, the social contract is a theory or model that originated during the Age of Enlightenment and usually, although not always, concerns the legitimacy of the authority of the state over the individual.
Social ...
. He arrived at the conclusion that the optimal theory of justice is the one to which people would agree from behind a
veil of ignorance, not knowing their social positions.
Wide reflective equilibrium
Wide reflective equilibrium, first introduced by Rawls, has been described by Norman Daniels as "a method that attempts to produce coherence in ordered triple sets of beliefs held by a particular person, namely: (a) a set of considered moral judgments, (b) a set of moral principles, and (c) a set of relevant (scientific and philosophical) background theories".
Relation to constructivism
Kai Nielsen has asserted that "philosophers who are defenders of reflective equilibrium are also ''
constructivists''", in response to what he considered to be the misconception that reflective equilibrium works with some necessarily preexisting coherent system of moral beliefs and practices:
Criticism
Paul Thagard has criticized the method of reflective equilibrium as "only like a smokescreen for a relatively sophisticated form of logical and methodological relativism" and "at best incidental to the process of developing normative principles". Among the "numerous problems" of reflective equilibrium, Thagard counted "undue reliance on intuition and the danger of arriving at stable but suboptimal sets of norms".
In place of reflective equilibrium, Thagard recommended what he considered to be a more
consequentialist
In ethical philosophy, consequentialism is a class of normative, teleological ethical theories that holds that the consequences of one's conduct are the ultimate basis for judgment about the rightness or wrongness of that conduct. Thus, from ...
method of justifying norms by identifying a domain of practices, identifying candidate norms for the practices, identifying the appropriate goals of the practices, evaluating the extent to which different practices accomplish these goals, and adopting as domain norms the practices that best accomplish these goals.
See also
*
Belief revision Belief revision is the process of changing beliefs to take into account a new piece of information. The logical formalization of belief revision is researched in philosophy, in databases, and in artificial intelligence for the design of rational ag ...
*
Consistency
In classical deductive logic, a consistent theory is one that does not lead to a logical contradiction. The lack of contradiction can be defined in either semantic or syntactic terms. The semantic definition states that a theory is consistent ...
*
Dialectics
Dialectic ( grc-gre, διαλεκτική, ''dialektikḗ''; related to dialogue; german: Dialektik), also known as the dialectical method, is a discourse between two or more people holding different points of view about a subject but wishing t ...
*
Double-loop learning Double-loop learning entails the modification of goals or decision-making rules in the light of experience. The first loop uses the goals or decision-making rules, the second loop enables their modification, hence "double-loop". Double-loop learni ...
*
Enantiodromia Enantiodromia ( grc, ἐνάντιος, enantios – "opposite" and δρόμος, ''dromos'' – "running course") is a principle introduced in the West by psychiatrist Carl Jung. In '' Psychological Types'', Jung defines enantiodromia as "the emer ...
*
Foundherentism
*
Neurath's boat
*
Rational reconstruction
*
Reason maintenance
References
Further reading
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
{{Navboxes
, list=
{{Analytic philosophy
{{John Rawls
Belief
Concepts in logic
Concepts in ethics
Inductive reasoning
Justification (epistemology)
John Rawls
Philosophical analogies