CONCEPT
Reflective Equilibrium
Rawls's method for moral reasoning — the iterative adjustment of principles and particular judgments until each supports the other in a coherent whole that neither starts from fixed axioms nor relies on brute intuition.
Reflective equilibrium is Rawls's solution to a methodological problem that had troubled moral philosophy for centuries: how can we reason about principles when we cannot derive them from uncontested axioms and cannot simply rely on moral intuitions that different people perceive differently? Rawls's answer is a patient process of iteration. We begin with moral judgments about particular cases that we hold with some confidence — that slavery is wrong, that arbitrary discrimination is unjust, that innocent children should not suffer for their parents' crimes. We articulate principles that might explain these judgments. We then test the principles against further cases, refine them when they produce conclusions we cannot accept, and in turn adjust some of our particular judgments when they are revealed, under reflection, to be less secure than the principles suggest. The process converges, ideally, on a state in which our principles and our judgments support each other — reflective equilibrium.
In The You On AI Field Guide
The method