Search

This article explores, comparatively and critically, Sidgwick’s and Rawls’s reasons for rejecting desert as a principle of distributive justice. Their ethical methods, though not identical, each require giving weight to common sense convictions about justice as well as higher-level principles. Both men, therefore, need to find a substitute for desert that captures some of its content – in Sidgwick’s case ‘quasi-desert’ takes the form of an incentive principle, and in Rawls’s case a principle of legitimate entitlement. However their reasons for rejecting desert are unclear, and at points appear to rest on contestable conceptual or metaphysical claims that their methodological commitments are meant to rule out. To clarify matters, the article distinguishes between three levels at which anti-desert arguments may operate: 1) Those purporting to reveal some fundamental defect in the idea of desert itself; 2) Those purporting to show that we cannot find a coherent basis for desert, at least for purposes of social justice; 3) Those purporting to show that it is impossible for social institutions to reward people according to their deserts, no matter which basis is chosen. At each level, the arguments put forward by Sidgwick and by Rawls are shown to be unsound.

The purpose of this study is to test tasks that participants will—in subsequent work—complete both individually and in small groups. For the subsequent work, we will need forced binary choice reasoning tasks and thought experiments that produce a roughly equal proportion of each response. So we developed a battery of forced choice items from the intelligence, philosophy, and psychology literature that have been relatively highly cited and have been replicated. The broad research questions are as follows. Which items produced the most equal response distributions? Does performance vary depending on whether reasoning items are presented before (vs. after) thought experiments? How familiar are participants with modified versions of classic reflection test questions and thought experiments? This preliminary experiment addresses this question by randomizing participants to one of two conditions. The reflection-first condition begins with a randomized battery of reflection test questions and proceeds to a randomized battery of thought experiments. The philosophy-first condition reverses this order. (See attached survey.)

In this paper, we investigate how data about public preferences may be used to inform policy around the use of controversial novel technologies, using public preferences about autonomous vehicles (AVs) as a case study. We first summarize the recent ‘Moral Machine’ study, which generated preference data from millions of people regarding how they think AVs should respond to emergency situations. We argue that while such preferences cannot be used to directly inform policy, they should not be disregarded. We defend an approach that we call ‘Collective Reflective Equilibrium in Practice’ (CREP). In CREP, data on public attitudes function as an input into a deliberative process that looks for coherence between attitudes, behaviours and competing ethical principles. We argue that in cases of reasonable moral disagreement, data on public attitudes should play a much greater role in shaping policies than in areas of ethical consensus. We apply CREP to some of the global preferences about AVs uncovered by the Moral Machines study. We intend this discussion both as a substantive contribution to the debate about the programming of ethical AVs, and as an illustration of how CREP works. We argue that CREP provides a principled way of using some public preferences as an input for policy, while justifiably disregarding others.

This article makes a case for wide reflective equilibrium in doing African epistemology. It argues that on the issue of formulating a viable theory of knowledge, such an approach is more promising than the extant dominant approaches, namely the method of ethno-epistemology and the method of particularistic studies. More specifically, wide reflective equilibrium articulates a proper balance between philosophy and culture and endows a theory of knowledge with multiple sources of normativity.

We discuss the social-epistemic aspects of Catherine Elgin’s theory of reflective equilibrium and understanding and argue that it yields an argument for the view that a crucial social-epistemic function of epistemic authorities is to foster understanding in their communities. We explore the competences that enable epistemic authorities to fulfil this role and argue that among them is an epistemic virtue we call “epistemic empathy”.

Public justification in political liberalism is often conceptualized in light of Rawls’s view of its role in a hypothetical well-ordered society as an ideal or idealizing form of justification that applies a putatively reasonable conception of political justice to political matters. But Rawls implicates a different idea of public justification in his doctrine of general reflective equilibrium. The paper engages this second, more fundamental idea. Public justification in this second sense is actualist and fundamental (rather than ideal or idealizing and conception-applying). It is actualist in that it fully enfranchises actual reasonable citizens. It is fundamental in that political liberalism qualifies conceptions of political justice as reasonable to begin with only if they can be accepted coherently by actual reasonable citizens. Together, these features invite the long-standing concern that actualist political liberalism is objectionably exclusionary. I argue that the exclusion objection, while plausible, is more problematic in own right than it seems if actualist and fundamental public justification hypotheticalizes and discursive respect is compatible with substantive discursive inequality. This leaves proponents and critics of political liberalism with deeper questions about the nature of permissible discursive inequality in public justification.

Avner de-Shalit has devised a methodology for coming closer to a settled view in political philosophy which he calls ‘public reflective equilibrium’, extending ideas of John Rawls and Michael Walze...

I am sympathetic to Avner de Shalit’s position that a political philosophy should incorporate public values, but I see their role differently. Philosophers of science standardly distinguish between...

In this paper, I outline two concerns regarding Avner de Shalit’s proposal for a public reflective equilibrium. Firstly, de Shalit's work suggests a division between the philosopher and the people....

I argue that theoretical developments in the study of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) should occur alongside progress in moral psychology, particularly moral cognition. More specifically, I argue that Universal Moral Grammar (UMG), a model positing an innate, regulative, and universal moral faculty characterizable in terms of rules and principles, fulfills the role of the foundational model needed to usefully conceptualize the UDHR. As such, I provide a detailed account of UMG against competing models in moral psychology. Furthermore, I combine UMG with Talbott’s Historical-Social Process of Moral Discovery and Rawls’s reflective equilibrium to show how the UDHR represents a major development in moral exploration, one indicating a more penetrative look into the inner moral nature of humans that attempts to reach, but does not attain, one interpretation of reflective equilibrium tied to cognitive moral psychology.

This paper discusses a challenge to normative ethics motivated by experimental philosophy. Experimental philosophers object to the perceived “armchair” or a priori nature of philosophy, claiming it should rather be empirical or naturalistic. The paper investigates the application of this claim to normative ethics. Dubbing the application of the experimental philosophers’ contention to normative ethics “the Armchair Claim,” I distinguish descriptive and normative versions of this challenge, and consider their merits as comments on the method of normative ethics (descriptive versions), and as comments on how normative ethics should be done (normative versions). Characterizing normative ethics as essentially involving the use of the method of reflective equilibrium, I show how the versions of the Armchair Claim that I distinguish either misconstrue normative ethics, or are committed to metaethical views that are controversial. To bring home the latter point, I contrast two meta-ethical positions, and show how, on one such view, naturalism, the descriptive version could be correct, whereas on another, intuitionism, it would be false. The normative version, in turn, is consistent with naturalism, but begs the question against the intuitionist since she argues that normative ethics cannot be empirical. The upshot is that a conclusive assessment of the Armchair Claim will have to await the resolution of disputed issues in meta-ethics. However, normative ethicists can get on with their work since reflective equilibrium is unaffected by such debates.

What is the origin and hence justification for ethical principles, moral theories, laws, case precedents, and virtues? If one excludes edicts from religion or absolute rulers, the alternative is from the consensus of those subject to the ethical principles, moral theories, laws, case precedents, and virtues. The central question is how to abstract ethical principles, moral theories, laws, case precedents, and virtues from a consensus group. Historically, those who make up the consensus are expected to be reasonable persons blinded to their self-interest. The question is whether this is feasible. Further, how is one to have confidence that the consensus truly reflects those to be governed? This is an empirical question as any science. Further, it represents a form of inductive logic where generalities are abstracted from particular as in any science. As such, the science of Induction, such as statistical reasoning, can be applied to ethics.

Background: This paper offers an interpretation of John Rawls’s philosophy as applied to jurisprudence. Research purpose: The purpose is to interpret the ideal of the original position as a device of non-positivist jurisprudence, which help us to better understand the theoretical bond between justice and law, as well as make a case for non-positivism. Methods: Analytical jurisprudence, conceptual analysis, reflective equilibrium Conclusions: The paper argues that Rawlsian original position can be applied in constructing a non-positivist conception of law, and that within the Rawlsian scheme moral considerations are indispensable when determining legal validity.

The leading question of this paper is: Where does the normativity of the ethics of science and technology come from? This is a challenging question given that the traditional reservoirs of convenience (like metaphysical universalism) are no longer at our disposal the way they used to be. The paper is divided into eight sections: (1) It is specified what challenges a non-foundationalist justification and normativity has to meet. (2) A three-dimensional conception of responsibility is developed based on the human triangular I–We–World relations. (3) The concepts of bounded responsibility and bounded ethics of science and technology are formulated. (4) The principle of reflective equilibrium is introduced as a principle of rationality, and it is shown how this principle generates rational and reasonable justifications in the ethics of science and technology. (5) Against this background, a reconception of internal and external responsibilities of science is given. (6) The type of responsibility demanded is exemplified by today’s climate research. (7) The paper argues for a hand-in-hand model of uncertainties in the sciences and for ethical obligations to preserve the conditions of human life on earth. The ethical argument is spelled out in terms of ethical care, preservation, and precaution. (8) Additionally, some arguments are developed to answer the question of why it is reasonable at all to preserve human life on earth.

Aristotle has little to say about ethics across cultural lines. I have suggested that dialectic or reflective equilibrium may be helpful there. But upon further consideration I note that intuitions and principles may differ radically across national and cultural boundaries, and that rationality is not very common and not always useful to ethics in the absence of supportive emotions. Perhaps businesses, which require cooperation in diversity, can encourage a transactional form of association that in due course ripens into something like a strong form of friendship, much as habits develop into virtues. They may also create some space for dialectical conversations. Insofar as friendly conversations about ethics increase organizational effectiveness, they may spread widely. But recent political developments, along with new organizational forms, raise issues that should temper our optimism.

This paper offers a systematic reading of justice as fairness. By ‘systematic reading’ I mean an interpretation capable of presenting the rawlsian political conception as a coherent theoretical framework with all its stages of justification. I argue that the concept of point of view allows for this kind of interpretation. In the first part of this paper, I briefly discuss the difficulties of obtaining a comprehensive understanding of justice as fairness from some proposals previously set forth in the literature. In the second part, I make a formal definition of the concept of point of view and expound the main points of view in justice as fairness. Finally, I set out in detail what I will call here ‘Rawls’s point of view’, the starting point of justice as fairness.

Many normative theorists want to contribute to making the world a better place. In recent years, it has been suggested that to realise this ambition one must start with an adequate description of real-life practices. To determine what should be done, however, one must also fundamentally criticise existing moral beliefs. The method of reflective equilibrium offers a way of doing both. Yet, its practical usefulness has been doubted and it has been largely ignored in the recent practical turn of normative theorising. This paper offers a complementary methodology to the method of reflective equilibrium, referred to as Rawlsian constructivism, which brings forth its practical merits. With the support of Rawlsian constructivism, the method of reflective equilibrium becomes a tool for public reasoning about practical problems which aims to facilitate shared solutions. The process of reflective scrutiny is used, not in the search of moral truth, but rather to highlight what stands in the way of solutions to problems agents face in different domains of social life. The practical value lies in scrutinising reasons for action that are taken for granted, explicating new rationales for action and highlighting neglected points of agreement. The paper exemplifies this approach with a process of justifying individual obligations to combat climate change. Normative theorists who share the practical agenda have correctly noted the importance of bottom-up investigations of subject domains. This paper argues that the next step should be to utilise this version of the method of reflective equilibrium to explore the potential for morally progressive solutions to these problems.

The first part addresses the concept of needs and their moral significance. That includes the demarcation of needs from desires; subtypes of needs, such as categorical and basic needs; the role of a decent life in the specification of needs; and the claim that the satisfaction of needs takes priority over the satisfaction of desires. In the second part, qualitative principles, both comparative and non-comparative, and quantitative measures of need-based justice are discussed. The last part is concerned with methodological and justificatory questions. We analyse the reconstructive and the constructive method of developing a theory of justice and examine Rawls’ model of reflective equilibrium. Special emphasis is placed on the ways in which theories of justice might draw on empirical findings.

John White and John Tillson have both raised objections to the theory of moral education I have recently advanced. Here I reply to their objections and offer some critical remarks on the alternative accounts of moral education they propose.

This paper is concerned with whether there is a moral difference between simulating wrongdoing and consuming non-simulatory representations of wrongdoing. I argue that simulating wrongdoing is (as such) a pro tanto wrong whose wrongness does not tarnish other cases of consuming representations of wrongdoing. While simulating wrongdoing (as such) constitutes a disrespectful act, consuming representations of wrongdoing (as such) does not. I aim to motivate this view in part by bringing a number of intuitive moral judgements into reflective equilibrium, and in part by describing the case of a character that I call The Devious Super Geek who simulates wrong to particular people that he knows personally. I build bridging cases from the case of the Devious Super Geek to capture games in which one simulates wrong to imaginary members of extant, morally salient categories. The surprising conclusions that we are led to include not just that simulated wrongdoing is pro tanto wrong, but that simulated Just killing is pro tanto wrong, and also that the simulated killing of zombies and aliens is also pro tanto wrong. Finally, I described how I proposed to handle some potential objections and attempt to weigh the pro tanto wrong identified in the paper against some countervailing considerations in some all things considered judgements.

This article argues that global egalitarian accounts of global justice are insufficient and inappropriate to the task of thinking globally about justice. This article argues that the most pervasive approaches to cosmopolitanism, and in particular global egalitarian accounts, are of limited utility because they assume the existence of suitable preconditions which are absent, in particular the lack of a global reflective equilibrium. In so doing, they ignore the requisite precondition for their own thought to be either persuasive or possible as a basis for genuine conduct or institutional reform. This article argues that the task for cosmopolitan thought is to think about how cosmopolitanism can in the words of Richard Rorty be ‘shaped rather than found’ and what that would mean for how we construct accounts of global justice and other pressing cosmopolitan issues. It concludes that developing a theory of global justice requires at least a theoretical engagement with non-Western political thought.

The introduction of new technologies in society is sometimes met with public resistance. Supported by public policy calls for “upstream engagement” and “responsible innovation,” recent years have seen a notable rise in attempts to attune research and innovation processes to societal needs, so that stakeholders’ concerns are taken into account in the design phase of technology. Both within the social sciences and in the ethics of technology, we see many interdisciplinary collaborations being initiated that aim to address tensions between various normative expectations about science and engineering and the actual outcomes. However, despite pleas to integrate social science research into the ethics of technology, effective normative models for assessing technologies are still scarce. Rawls’s wide reflective equilibrium (WRE) is often mentioned as a promising approach to integrate insights from the social sciences in the normative analysis of concrete cases, but an in-depth discussion of how this would work in practice is still lacking. In this article, we explore to what extent the WRE method can be used in the context of technology development. Using cases in engineering and technology development, we discuss three issues that are currently neglected in the applied ethics literature on WRE. The first issue concerns the operationalization of abstract background theories to moral principles. The second issue concerns the inclusiveness of the method and the demand for openness. The third issue is how to establish whether or not an equilibrium has been reached. These issues should be taken into account when applying the methods to real-world cases involving technological risks. Applying the WRE method in the context of engaged interdisciplinary collaboration requires sensitivity for issues of power and representativeness to properly deal with the dynamics between the technical and normative researchers involved as well as society at large.

This article makes a positive case for an ethnographic sensibility in political theory. Drawing on published ethnographies and original fieldwork, it argues that an ethnographic sensibility can contribute to normative reflection in five distinct ways. It can help uncover the nature of situated normative demands (epistemic argument); diagnose obstacles encountered when responding to these demands (diagnostic argument); evaluate practices and institutions against a given set of values (evaluative argument); probe, question and refine our understanding of values (valuational argument); and uncover underlying social ontologies (ontological argument). The contribution of ethnography to normative theory is distinguished from that of other forms of empirical research, and the dangers of perspectival absorption, bias and particularism are addressed.

The question of what it means to live well has been debated in the public forum for millennia, and continues to occupy a central place in politics and policy. The starting hypothesis of this study was that, if people across the world, from different cultures, languages and worldviews, share common values, and if these overlap with philosophical theories of well-being, then this is evidence that there are good reasons and reason to value those things. This chapter brings together the different strands of analysis to identify common ground between theoretical and practical accounts of well-being. The final analysis shows that good social relationships are a necessary condition of all the other constituents of a good life. Happiness and freedom require other people, and good health, work, education and leisure are grounded in meaningful, mutually respectful social connections. Belonging—the sharing of identities, interests and ends with others—grounds well-being. For politics and policy, focusing on Sociality would reap dividends: Good social relationships are a catalyst of overall well-being. The biggest lesson for politics and policy is that the journey Beyond GDP should be directed towards building a sound infrastructure of sociality to underpin well-being.

Background There is growing interest in the use and incorporation of empirical data in bioethics research. Much of the recent focus has been on specific “empirical bioethics” methodologies, which attempt to integrate the empirical and the normative. Researchers in the field are, however, beginning to explore broader questions, including around acceptable standards of practice for undertaking such research. The framework: In this article, we further widen the focus to consider the overall shape of an empirical bioethics research project. We outline a framework that identifies three key phases of such research, which are conveyed via a landscaping metaphor of Mapping-Framing-Shaping. First, the researcher maps the field of study, typically by undertaking literature reviews. Second, the researcher frames particular areas of the field of study, exploring these in depth, usually via qualitative research. Finally, the researcher seeks to (re-)shape the terrain by issuing recommendations that draw on the findings from the preceding phases. To qualify as empirical bioethics research, the researcher will utilise a methodology that seeks to bridge these different elements in order to arrive at normative recommendations. We illustrate the framework by citing examples of diverse projects which broadly adopt the three-phase framework. Amongst the strengths of the framework are its flexibility, since (as the examples indicate) it does not prescribe any specific methods or particular bridging methodology. However, the framework might also have its limitations, not least because it appears particularly to capture projects that involve qualitative – as opposed to quantitative – research. Conclusions Despite its possible limitations, we offer the Mapping-Framing-Shaping framework in the hope that this will prove useful to those who are seeking to plan and undertake empirical bioethics research projects.

This is a chapter in a forthcoming book, Exploring Justice in Extreme Cases: Criminal Law Theory and International Criminal Law (Cambridge University Press). In this chapter, I argue for a ‘coherentist’ approach to criminal law theory. Coherentism stipulates that we can make meaningful progress on mid-level problems without resolving ‘foundational’ questions. As humans in an uncertain universe, the best we can do is to try to reconcile the available clues and arguments. For example, we can discuss fundamental principles of a criminal justice system, without necessarily subscribing to one of the main foundational moral theories, and without determining which of those theories is the ‘correct’ one. By using the device of ‘mid-level principles’ (principles intermediate between practice and foundational theories), we can carry out fruitful analytical and normative work. For many readers, coherentism may at first sound too uncertain, superficial and non-committal -- like an invitation to ad hoc bricolage. Such objections underestimate both the rigour and ambition of the coherentist method. I will argue that the main objections to coherentism (eg lack of certainty) are actually objections to the human condition. I will strive to show that coherentism is more convincing and more reliable than foundationalist approaches, and also more transparent about the limitations of ethical deliberation. The coherentist approach accepts that our principles are human constructs, that our starting points are historically contingent, and that we have no guarantees of ‘correctness’. Nonetheless, it is important to try to determine whether institutions are just, using the best available methods that we have. I also argue that coherentism is the best explanatory and justificatory account of criminal law theory, i.e. the best theory of criminal law theory.

New technology brings great benefits, but it can also create new and significant risks. When evaluating those risks in policymaking, there is a tendency to focus on social acceptance. By solely focusing on social acceptance, we could, however, overlook important ethical aspects of technological risk, particularly when we evaluate technologies with transnational and intergenerational risks. I argue that good governance of risky technology requires analyzing both social acceptance and ethical acceptability. Conceptually, these two notions are mostly complementary. Social acceptance studies are not capable of sufficiently capturing all the morally relevant features of risky technologies; ethical analyses do not typically include stakeholders' opinions, and they therefore lack the relevant empirical input for a thorough ethical evaluation. Only when carried out in conjunction are these two types of analysis relevant to national and international governance of risky technology. I discuss the Rawlsian wide reflective equilibrium as a method for marrying social acceptance and ethical acceptability. Although the rationale of my argument is broadly applicable, I will examine the case of multinational nuclear waste repositories in particular. This example will show how ethical issues may be overlooked if we focus only on social acceptance, and will provide a test case for demonstrating how the wide reflective equilibrium can help to bridge the proverbial acceptance-acceptability gap.

Reflective equilibrium is a proposal to justify general norms (not only moral norms) by adjusting them to a pre-systematic practice. The paper investigates the method of constructing a reflective equilibrium as a method for ‘disappointed connoisseurs’ with regard to alternative ways of justification. The example of no-smoking norms that have emerged within the last twenty years serves several purposes: It is used to illustrate under which conditions requests for justification arise and to investigate which role a worked-out practice can play in the justification of general norms. Additionally, the construction of a reflective equilibrium with respect to a no-smoking norm shows the necessity of implementing systematic considerations in the process of justification. The paper closes with some remarks concerning the characteristic quality of justification one can achieve by the method of reflective equilibrium.

In the Harvard Law Review in 1897, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., wrote that ‘[f]or the rational study of the law the black-letter man may be the man of the present, but the man of the future is the man of statistics and the master of economics.’ 1 Now, nearly 120 years later, the future that Holmes foresaw is arriving. Much of the global population has transitioned from an analogue, paper-based world with unreliable, slow, and costly communication to a digitally connected world with almost universal real time and nearly costless communication. And within this digital world, we are witnessing substantially greater availability of data and improved methods of machine learning through advances in computer-assisted modelling and inference. The implications for law of an abundance of data of all kinds and dramatically more effective statistical tools are becoming visible. The ultimate consequences for law will be profound. I propose referring to the culmination of these developments as ‘the legal singularity.’ The legal singularity will affect all areas of the law. For the purposes of illustration, I focus my attention here on tax law. I predict that the coming decades will witness three gradual transitions as the legal singularity draws nearer: (a) improved dispute resolution and access to justice in tax law, primarily through the transition from our current reliance on standards (adjudicated ex post) to greater reliance on query-able systems of complex rules (knowable ex ante); (b) a transition to superior and increasingly more complete specifications of tax law (that is, a gradual transition from the complex, unwieldy, uncoordinated tax systems of today to tax systems that are massively complex and yet precisely and effectively distribute benefits and burdens); and (c) with the realization of the legal singularity, a complete specification of tax law (and, indeed, all of the other areas of law), which will thenceforth remain (more or less) in positive and normative equilibrium. The equilibrium achieved by the legal singularity will be a type of reflective equilibrium along the lines described by John Rawls in A Theory of Justice. 2

Ideal theory faces a paradox. The ‘capacity of guidance’ is an important feature of most normative theories, but ideal principles of justice are not well suited to guide action in non-ideal circumstances. This charge presses us to seek plausible avenues to connect ideal values with the non-ideal realisation of justice. The objective of this paper is to introduce an analytical framework and present a case study in support of what I call the ‘reflective integration thesis’. The thesis states that: if we wish to formulate principles of justice that can guide action in non-ideal circumstances, we need to integrate ideal and non-ideal theory, and the way to integrate ideal and non-ideal theory is by seeking reflective equilibrium between these levels. Taking climate justice as a model, this paper will explore the features of a non-ideal theory of justice, thereby providing insights about the structure of an action-guiding theory. It will show that, in order to guide action, our ideal principles of climate just...

Environmental ethicists typically consider Jurgen Habermas’s theory of communicative action to exclude moral consideration for nonhuman animals. Habermas's early work indeed limits relationships with nature to instrumental ones. Yet, interspersed throughout Habermas's writings are clear indications that nonhuman life deserves moral consideration, and that humans can enter into communicative relationships with nonhumans, however asymmetrical. Habermas’s anthropocentric theoretical foundations can achieve a revised, reflective equilibrium congruent with his persistent intuitions that nonhumans also possess powers of communication (but not discourse) that would grant them moral consideration, perhaps allowing us to enter into non-linguistic interspecies communicative activity. Habermasians can incorporate non-instrumental relationships with nature into discourse ethics’ set of applications without ignoring the special role of language in communication. Rather than holding that the differencia specifica between humans and nonhumans exists in communication, it makes more sense instead to displace this distinction between communicative action as a general category and the special case of discourse. Doing so permits intuitions of nonhuman moral considerability and communicative possibility without altering the discursive core of Habermas’s theory.

As Helen Longino's overview ofHypatia's engagement with feminist epistemology suggests, the last twenty‐five years’ contributions to this field reveal a strong focus on the topic of knowledge. In her short outline, Longino questions this narrow focus on knowledge in epistemological inquiry. The main purpose of this article is to provide a framework for systematically taking up the questions raised by Longino, one that prevents us from running the risk of becoming unreflectively involved in sexist, racist, or otherwise problematic inquiry. I argue that a specific form of the method of Reflective Equilibrium, as it is widely discussed in moral epistemology, logic, and theories of rationality, enables us to cope with the problems of traditional epistemology, which feminist theorizers such as Sally Haslanger have pointed to. With the account of Reflective Equilibrium I am offering—drawing in many respects on the model provided by Catherine Z. Elgin—we have an ameliorative method that allows us to rethink epistemological values, goals, and standards in a systematic way, and that largely avoids implicit and explicit biases in epistemology.

Lacan's quilting point connects a network of signifiers with the lived world as a place of voices, memory, and adaptation "seen in" the mirror of language. Crossing cultures can obscure the ways we make sense of the world. Some planes of signification, in aiming to be universal in their knowledge (such as the natural sciences), try to track objects and events independent of our thoughts about them and the ways that signifiers may slide past each other. However, cross-structural comparison and the analysis of cross cultural encounters cannot treat its objects of interest that way. Thus we need a theory and methodology that effectively connects the multilayered discourses of subjectivities from diverse cultures and allows triangulation between them in relation to points of shared experience. At such points we need a critical attitude to our own framework and an openness to the uneasy reflective equilibrium that uncovers assumptions and modes of thinking that will hamper us. Quilting points are such points where different discourses converge on a single event or set of events so as to mark "vertical" connections allowing tentative alignments between ways of meaning so that we can begin to build real cross-cultural understanding.

Any public policy is susceptible to ethical assessment. Policies depend on a balance of policy arguments that usually have a deep normative core. Analysis begins by reconstructing overall policy arguments identifying the concepts at that core. Those concepts are often ambiguous and their competing conceptions need to be distinguished in terms of key principles and ideas. Those principles and ideas are related to one another in larger patterns of argument understood along familiar philosophical lines as utilitarian, intuitionist, and rights-based. Where reflective equilibrium fails to resolve disagreements, accountability for reasonableness becomes important.

In this paper, I argue that no strong doctrine of the Fall can undermine the propriety of epistemic self-trust. My argument proceeds by introducing a common type of philosophical methodology, known as reflective equilibrium. After a brief exposition of the method, I introduce a puzzle for someone engaged in the project of self-reflection after gaining a reason to distrust their epistemic selves on the basis of a construal of a doctrine of the Fall. I close by introducing the worry as a formal argument and demonstrate the self-undermining nature of such an argument. Publisher PDF

Appeals to social justice that argue medicine and healthcare should have certain priorities and not others are common. It is an obvious question to ask: What does social justice demand of the new genetic technologies? However, it is important to note that there are many theories and sub-theories of justice. There are utilitarian theories, libertarian theories, and egalitarian theories. There are so-called luck egalitarians, equality-as-fairness thinkers, and capability theorists, with each having his or her own distinctive approach to the distribution of medical goods and technologies, and to healthcare priorities. This article argues that the discussion surrounding this question is potentially hampered by an implicit assumption that if one theory of justice is applicable in one context, then it must also be applicable in others. Instead, it is proposed that one adopt the stance, influenced by Michael Waltzer, that different theories with their opposing principles may be applicable to different questions regarding justice and genetics. The specific view advanced is that to answer questions about what justice requires regarding the therapeutic and enhancement use of genetic techniques, a method of reflective equilibrium can show how intuitions, in context, may support different theories of justice. When particular pre-theoretic ethical judgments are balanced against the theories that might explain or justify them, and are in accord with what seems emotionally acceptable, then it can be seen how different general theories may be applicable in the different contexts in which questions of justice and genetics arise.

An ethical perspective on a field like the application of genetic engineering on animals in farming and food production is much more than mere technology assessments of risks and benefits. Rather ethics must approach the relationship between principles and practical moral challenges as a kind of reflective equilibrium. Against this background, applied ethics is not merely the application of principles to practice but a process in which practical experiences reciprocally influence the content and interpretation of ethical principles. Ethical theory learns from moral practice. Given that the interventions of biotechnology and genetic engineering principally affect the existence of nonhuman animals, ethics not only addresses questions relating to human health or social cooperation but takes a particularly fundamental interest in the ever-changing normative relationship between humans and animals as well as humans and nature. Therefore in this paper the analysis of the ethical challenges posed by biotechnology applied on animals reveals several problem areas that must be considered in developing ethical criteria for the investigation of biogenetic activities. Firstly, the paper will address the basic relationship of humankind and its technologies to nature (Chap. 1) in addition to the development of relevant evaluative criteria in environmental ethics and the ethics of nature (Chap. 2). The latter aid in the normative evaluation of technologies when weighing up which ends and means can be considered justified in relation to the goods a society recognises (Chap. 3). Against the background of biotechnological contributions to food production, the anthropological question as to what role food plays in a current culture and lifestyle—and what kind of change that culture and lifestyle might admit—will be analysed (Chap. 4). Yet the evaluation of biotechnology, to the extent that it is used on animals, covers more than just the well-being of humans and society; transgenic animals also pose a great challenge to animal protection and welfare (Chap. 5). Finally the paper discusses that a society dealing with new technologies must constantly consider what form risk assessment should take and what kind of tolerance for environmental, health, and economic risks that implies (Chap. 6). Processes that advance sustainability, justice, food quality, and animal welfare alike should be placed at the centre of modern agriculture and food production. From an ethical perspective, the gene technological and biotechnological production of animals must be measured according to the extent of its contribution to these complex and highly relevant goals.

Professor Richard Fallon’s Law and Legitimacy in the Supreme Court is a deep, original, and important contribution to constitutional theory. Fallon’s book is extraordinary, ranging across fundamental issues in normative constitutional theory and connecting to important ideas from political philosophy, metaethics, and the philosophy of language. This Essay explores three themes from Fallon and reflects on the significance of Fallon’s work for contemporary constitutional theory. The first theme concerns the idea of constraint by the constitutional text: Fallon develops a challenge to the claim that the legitimacy of judicial review requires that judges be constrained by the constitutional text. Part I of this Essay situates Fallon’s challenge in the context of contemporary originalist constitutional theory. Discussion of the first theme aims to reveal difficulties with Fallon’s claim that the existence of multiple kinds of meaning undermines certain forms of constitutional originalism. The second theme derives from Fallon’s exploration of the foundational role of the idea of reflective equilibrium in normative constitutional theory. Part II of this Essay suggests that the role of constitutional theory requires that reflective equilibrium be reconceptualized in terms of intersubjective agreement among citizens who affirm a plurality of moral, religious, and ideological perspectives: in other words, it is a we and not an I that should aim for a relationship of consistency and mutual support between our considered constitutional judgments. Exploration of the second theme aims to reveal a difficulty with a first-person singular approach to reflective equilibrium. The third theme is prompted by Fallon’s exploration of the idea of legitimacy. Part III of this Essay suggests that constitutional legitimacy has a complex structure, including both multiple dimensions and functions. Investigation of the third theme aims to uncover the ways in which constitutional legitimacy constrains the options available to normative constitutional theory. The three themes are woven together in the final Part of the Essay, which reflects the implications of Fallon’s work for the great debate between originalism and living constitutionalism. Part IV of the Essay suggests the ways in which originalists might respond to Fallon’s important, deep, and learned challenges to the case for constitutional originalism.

The motive of human fellowship is not easy to grasp. But when we consider the present state of social security and social welfare in terms of whether they are properly constructed, this question is quite important because human fellowship and self-interest are two factors/motives that support such efforts. Rawls dealt with the two motives in an inconsistent manner. His analytical method of reflective equilibrium studies self-interest in the process of making social principles and studies human fellowship in terms of the subsequent justification process. However, there is no assurance that the resulting social situations coincide. Sociobiology argues that altruism, a type of human fellowship, does exist but was originally controlled by selfish genes and that this altruism for selfish reasons might develop further into a stage of “nobility” if people come to understand that greater, wider human cooperation will assure the survival of their own genes. Conversely, we may also be able to argue that kind acts and human fellowship have been embedded in humanity from the beginning. Further research is required to verify these views, but either way, in today’s circumstances, where humans seem to experience an unstable life in an era of globalizing, harsher competitiveness in the market economy, both approaches seem to show the necessity of strengthening the supporting elements of the social system, the social security.

Many public health dilemmas involve a tension between the promotion of health and the rights of individuals. This article suggests that we should resolve the tension using our familiar liberal principles of government. The article considers the common objections that (i) liberalism is incompatible with standard public health interventions such as anti-smoking measures or intervention in food markets; (2) there are special reasons for hard paternalism in public health; and (3) liberalism is incompatible with proper protection of the community good. The article argues that we should examine these critiques in a larger methodological framework by first acknowledging that the right theory of public health ethics is the one we arrive at in reflective equilibrium. Once we examine the arguments for and against liberalism in that light, we can see the weaknesses in the objections and the strength of the case for liberalism in public health.

How can one bring children to recognize the requirements of morality without resorting only to non-rational means of persuasion (i.e. what rational ground can be offered to children for their moral enlistment)? Michael Hand has recently defended a foundationalist approach to answering this question and John White has responded by a) criticizing Hand’s solution to the Problem of Rational Moral Enlistment, and b) attempting to circumvent the problem by suggesting a Humean route which understands moral enlistment as grounded in sentiment. While I do not accept Hand’s preferred solution to the Problem of Rational Moral Enlistment, I am also unpersuaded by White’s attempt to circumvent it. Instead, making use of work by Ben Spiecker and Jan Steutel, I attempt a different solution to the Problem of Rational Moral Enlistment – one appealing to reflective equilibrium rather than to ethical foundationalism as Hand’s does. Whereas Hand hopes to ground rational moral enlistment in a single, self-evident foundational justification of some moral standards, I instead hope to facilitate rational moral enlistment through a rational procedure which starts with students’ existing moral commitments and attempts to revise or expand them through a certain kind of critical reflection.

Balancing calls for a “middle measure.” Aristotle’s phrase lets us reorient these three forms of inquiry toward ethics and aesthetics. While these basic skills let us solve “how-to-do-it” problems of innovation—in the sciences, in business, and in technology for instance—they also can help us move onward toward “why-to-do-it” issues of ethics and the arts. So throughout the book and especially in the concluding chapter, we celebrate larger principles of balancing measures in the arts, in ethics, and in the realm of creative play. This study of balancing also guides students toward questions of reasonable judgment. Isn’t balancing the basis for any practical judgment? With it, we can begin to make good choices about our futures. Without it, we lack practical reason. Finding our middle measure takes some practice, yet we find happiness within ourselves when we find our own.

The focus of this thesis is needs in the context of health care priority setting. The notion of needs has a strong standing in health care policy; however, how the idea should be understood more specifically and how it should guide decisions about priority setting remain contentious issues. The aim of this thesis is to explore how needs should be characterised in health care priority setting. This matter is approached by, first, exploring and developing the conceptual structure of health care needs, and second, discussing and suggesting solutions to normative questions that arise when needs are characterised as a distributive principle. In the first article, the conceptual structure of needs in general and health care needs in particular is explored, and it is argued that a specific characterisation of health care needs is required. In the second article, the notion of health care needs is explored in relation to preferences for health care within the context of shared decision-making. The paper further discusses a number of queries that arise in the intersection between what the patient needs and what the patient wants. The third article discusses how a principle of need should handle questions about interpersonal aggregation. The paper characterises a principle of need which strikes a reasonable balance between giving priority to the worst off and the distribution of benefits with regard to interpersonal aggregation. The fourth article discusses how a principle of need should account for the fact that patients often are badly off due to several conditions rather than one single condition. It is argued that how badly off patients are should be understood as a function of how badly off these patients are when all of their conditions (for which they need health care) are considered. The frame story provides the terminological, theoretical, contextual, and methodological background for the discussion undertaken in this thesis. The conclusions of the articles are brought together and the discussion extended in the concluding discussion by sketching a number of conditions of adequacy for the concept and principle of need relevant for health care priority setting. Den här avhandlingen fokuserar på behov och behovsprinciper inom hälso- och sjukvården. Behov har länge haft en stark ställning inom hälso- och sjukvården men det är omdiskuterat hur begreppet ska förstås mer specifikt och framförallt hur det ska vara vägledande för prioriteringar inom hälso- och sjukvården. Syftet med den här avhandlingen är att karakterisera behov för sådana prioriteringar. Avhandlingen tar sig an detta syfte utifrån två ansatser. För det första, genom att undersöka och utveckla den begreppsliga strukturen hos vårdbehov och, för det andra, genom att diskutera samt ge förslag på lösningar på ett antal normativa frågor som uppstår när vårdbehov skall karakteriseras som en fördelningsprincip. I den första artikeln undersöks begreppen behov och vårdbehov utifrån den allmänfilosofiska diskussionen om behov. I artikeln karakteriseras begreppet vårdbehov på ett sätt som gör det lämpligt för prioriteringar inom hälsooch sjukvården. I den andra artikeln utforskas begreppet vårdbehov i relation till önskemål om vård inom ramen för delat beslutsfattande. I artikeln diskuteras också ett antal frågeställningar som aktualiseras i relation till den spänning som kan uppstå mellan patientens behov å ena sidan och patientens önskemål å andra sidan. I den tredje artikeln behandlas frågan om hur en behovsprincip bör hantera frågor som rör sammanvägning av olika personers behov. I artikeln karakteriseras och försvaras en behovsprincip som balanserar prioritet till de sämst ställda och hur hälsovinster bör fördelas. I den fjärde artikeln förs en diskussion om hur en behovsprincip bör göra reda för det faktum att patienter ofta lider av samsjuklighet snarare än av ett enskilt tillstånd. I artikeln drivs tesen att hur dåligt ställt en patient har det bör förstås som en funktion av hur dåligt ställt patienten har det när alla patientens tillstånd (för vilka patienten behöver vård) har tagits i beaktande, snarare än hur dåligt ställt patienten har det med avseende på det specifika tillstånd för vilket patienten skall behandlas. I kappan ges den terminologiska, kontextuella, teoretiska och metodologiska bakgrunden för diskussionen i avhandlingen. I en avslutande diskussion förs slutsatserna från artiklarna samman och diskussionen utvidgas genom att skissera ett antal adekvansvillkor för begreppet vårdbehov och behovsprinciper i vården. I den tryckta versionen är det ena serienamnet felaktigt. I den elektroniska versionen är detta ändrat till korrekt "Linköping Dissertations on Health and Society"

Recent contributions to the journal Public Health Ethics on the role of political theory in public health ethics have advanced certain theses that may lead the discipline toward some theoretical blind alleys. The article critiques positions that downplay or misunderstand the potential of neorepublican understandings of political liberty, or deny the place of population health as a primary good or basic value in the political domain.The article proposes the use of the notion of intermediate human ends or goods for understanding the value of population health for a political society, in supporting the legitimacy of directive public health interventions. It defends the notion of reflective equilibrium against a critique by Stephen R. Latham as playing a prospectively important role in public health ethics, especially if reflective equilibrium is employed as including incompletely theorized mid-level principles. The article concludes by drawing attention to the potential to public health ethics of contemporary understandings of the common good in analytical philosophy.