Topic
Reflective equilibrium
About: Reflective equilibrium is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 538 publications have been published within this topic receiving 7237 citations.
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688 citations
Book•
28 Sep 1996TL;DR: In this paper, a wide-ranging collection of essays by one of the foremost medical ethicists in the USA explores the claim that justification in ethics, whether of matters of theory or practice, involves achieving coherence between our moral and non-moral beliefs.
Abstract: We all have beliefs, even strong convictions, about what is just and fair in our social arrangements. How should these beliefs and the theories of justice that incorporate them guide our thinking about practical matters of justice? This wide-ranging collection of essays by one of the foremost medical ethicists in the USA explores the claim that justification in ethics, whether of matters of theory or practice, involves achieving coherence between our moral and non-moral beliefs. Amongst the practical issues addressed in the volume are the design of health-care institutions, the distribution of goods between the old and the young, and fairness in hiring and firing. In combining ethical theory and practical ethics this volume will prove especially valuable to philosophers concerned with ethics and applied ethics, political theorists, bioethicists, and others involved in the study of public policy.
312 citations
TL;DR: Stich as discussed by the authors argues that common sense reasoning is a biological or conceptual impossibility, and argues that the widespread abhorrence of relativism is ill founded, which leads to a radical epistemic relativism.
Abstract: From Descartes to Popper, philosophers have criticized and tried to improve the strategies of reasoning invoked in science and in everyday life. In recent years leading cognitive psychologists have painted a detailed, controversial, and highly critical portrait of common sense reasoning. Stephen Stich begins with a spirited defense of this work and a critique of those writers who argue that widespread irrationality is a biological or conceptual impossibility.Stich then explores the nature of rationality and irrationality: What is it that distinguishes good reasoning from bad? He rejects the most widely accepted approaches to this question approaches which unpack rationality by appeal to truth, to reflective equilibrium or conceptual analysis. The alternative he defends grows out of the pragmatic tradition in which reasoning is viewed as a cognitive tool. Stich's version of pragmatism leads to a radical epistemic relativism and he argues that the widespread abhorrence of relativism is ill founded.Stephen Stich is Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University and author of From Folk Psychology to Cognitive Science.
264 citations
Posted Content•
TL;DR: In this article, a theory of custom is proposed to reconcile the descriptive and normative justifications for traditional and modern custom, which is based on a reflective interpretive approach that reconciles the traditional and normative explanations.
Abstract: There are two contemporary approaches to the determination of customary international law: the "traditional," which emphasizes state practice, and the "modern," which emphasizes opinio juris. This article proposes a theory of custom that incorporates both approaches. It rejects analyzing custom on a "sliding scale" in favor of a reflective interpretive approach that reconciles the descriptive and normative justifications for traditional and modern custom.
218 citations
01 Nov 2002
TL;DR: The idea of public reason as mentioned in this paper is more restricted than the idea of reflective equilibrium, since not all of an individual's considered judgments, or even all of his or her considered judgments about justice, need meet this test.
Abstract: Rawls offers what might be seen as three ideas of justification: the method of reflective equilibrium, the derivation of principles in the original position, and the idea of public reason. These can appear to be in some tension with one another. Reflective equilibrium seems to be an intuitive and “inductive” method. On one natural interpretation, it holds that principles are justified by their ability to explain those judgments in which we feel the highest degree of confidence. By contrast, the original position argument is more theoretical and more “deductive”: principles of justice are justified if they could be derived in the right way, institutions are just if they conform to these principles, and particular distributions are just if they are the products of just institutions. Justifications that meet the requirements of public reason need not have this particular form, but they are limited in a way that an individual's search for reflective equilibrium is not. The idea of public reason holds that questions of constitutional essentials and basic justice are to be settled by appeal to political values that everyone in the society, regardless of their comprehensive view, has reason to care about. This is more restrictive than the idea of reflective equilibrium, since not all of an individual's considered judgments, or even all of his or her considered judgments about justice, need meet this test.
197 citations