Sources & Extracts

Review this excerpt and then go back to the main thread.

The method of wide reflective equilibrium is an attempt to produce coherence in an ordered triple of 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 background theories. We begin by collecting the person's initial moral judgments and filter them to include only those of which he is relatively confident and which have been made under conditions conducive to avoiding errors of judgment. For example, the person is calm and has adequate information about cases being judged. We then propose alternative sets of moral principles that have varying degrees of "fit" with the moral judgments. We do not simply settle for the best fit of principles with judgments, however, which would give us only a narrow equilibrium. Instead, we advance philosophical arguments intended to bring out the relative strengths and weaknesses of the alternative sets of principles (or competing moral conceptions). These arguments can be construed as inferences from some set of relevant background theories (I use the term loosely). Assume that some particular set of arguments wins and that the moral agent is persuaded that some set of principles is more acceptable than the others (and, perhaps, than the conception that might have emerged in narrow equilibrium). We can imagine the agent working back and forth, making adjustments to his considered judgments, his moral principles, and his background theories. In this way he arrives at an equilibrium point that consists of the ordered triple (a), (b), (c). (Norman Daniels, Justice and Justification: Reflective Equilibrium in Theory and Practice, p. 22.)