Rawls's rotten Reflective Equilibrium

In 1977, Ilya Prigogine won a Nobel Prize for his work on what he called “dissipative structures.” He found that open systems, when far from equilibrium, can move spontaneously toward a more complex state, one that had not existed before and which could not be reached through a sequence of near-equilibrium transitions. It was well known that a non-dissipative system has conserved properties or conservation laws and that 'Noetherean' objects satisfy certain ascending and descending chain properties. But it had always been obvious that Life is dissipative. That's why it moves in the opposite direction to entropy. 

Sadly, John Rawls didn't get the memo. Econ Depts. did but- at least in India- they thought the thing was a Nepalese momo and so they dipped it in curry sauce and ate it. 

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has this to say on 'reflective equilibrium'

The aim of political philosophy is to reach justified conclusions about how political life should proceed.

But the aim of all life, including political life, is to not fucking die which is why it must reject any a priori political philosophy and respond to a changing fitness landscape by imitating what smarter polities are doing. 

Mahatma Gandhi had a consistent political philosophy- it involved quietly lining up to be beaten to death while abstaining from sex, salt, and saying or doing anything sensible. Hitler's political philosophy was even more internally coherent. It consisted of everybody dying for the greater glory of the Fuhrer. Churchill and Roosevelt- even Stalin- had a much less consistent political philosophy. Their strategies were 'far from equilibrium'- i.e. had a rich set of characteristic behaviors. Minimization of a 'free energy' determines the preferred state. The system reaches this state independent of the initial conditions. But this means rigidity and, sooner or later, a fatal failure to adapt to changing circumstances.

For Rawls, how justified one is in one’s political convictions depends on how close one is to achieving reflective equilibrium. In reflective equilibrium all of one’s beliefs, on all levels of generality, cohere perfectly with one another.

Hitler achieved this to a greater degree than any of his contemporaries. It was the duty of the Germans to keep fighting for their Fuhrer to the last man, woman and child. Sadly, they refused to do any such thing. 

Any crazy shit can be the basis of a reflective equilibrium. By contrast political thinking must always be 'far from equilibrium'. The alternative is to go the way of the Bourbons- who forgot nothing and learned nothing- or the Hapsburgs or, it transpired, the Bolsheviks and libtards like Rawls & Sen. 

Thus, in reflective equilibrium one’s specific political judgments (e.g., “religious intolerance is unjust,” “racial discrimination is unjust”) support one’s more general political convictions (e.g., “all citizens have certain basic rights”) which support one’s very abstract beliefs about the political world (e.g., “all citizens are free and equal”).

Yet one can believe 'all citizens are free and equal' even if we also believe no citizens have rights and Chinese takeaway involves taking away Chinese people and trying to eat them using only chopsticks- which is what actually happened to a friend of mine even though he wasn't from China and was a notorious liar. As for intolerance of any type, it would be unjust not to tolerate it.  

Viewed from the opposite direction, in reflective equilibrium one’s abstract beliefs explain one’s more general convictions, which in turn explain one’s specific judgments. Were one to attain reflective equilibrium, the justification of each belief would follow from all beliefs relating in these networks of mutual support and explanation.

But, au fond, the thing would still be arbitrary. There are no synthetic a priori propositions nor are there any  elementary propositions capable of asserting  the existence of atomic states of affairs. We don't know how to 'carve nature at its joints'. What we do know how to do is utter the sacred formula which turns the entire universe into a small doner kebab purchased in Kilburn in the Spring of 2002. 

Though perfect reflective equilibrium is unattainable,

on this side of the grave though, no doubt, at the end of mathematical Time, the thing might exist in a utile and non-arbitrary form. 

one can use the method of reflective equilibrium to get closer to it and so increase the justifiability of one’s beliefs.

No. The evidence is that this method involves senile virtue signalers going potty in a Professorial chair while their University Department turns to shit. 

In carrying through this method, one begins with one’s considered moral judgments:

and rejects them coz, like the good book says, 'judge not lest ye be judged'. The fact is judgment is protocol bound and buck stopped. Also you either get paid to do it or are under a contractual obligation to do so under certain exigent circumstances. If neither of these conditions is met, you aren't judging anything. You are just venting your spleen. 

those made consistently and without hesitation when one is under good conditions for thinking (e.g., “slavery is wrong,” “all citizens are political equals”).

This is foolish. Slavery may be the least worst alternative. No polity treats the Head of State as the political equal of a citizen about to be hanged for mass murder and treason.  

One treats these considered judgments as provisional fixed points, and then starts the process of bringing one’s beliefs into relations of mutual support and explanation as described above.

Only if one is employed to do so and a doctrine of 'harmonious construction' is required by relevant protocols. But this is done by hermeneutic innovation. In other words, 'intensions'  get different 'extensions'. 

Doing this inevitably brings out conflicts where, for example, a specific judgment clashes with a more general conviction, or where an abstract principle cannot accommodate a particular kind of case. One proceeds by revising these beliefs as necessary, striving always to increase the coherence of the whole.

Not if one isn't as stupid as shit or aren't paid to teach stupid shite.  

Carrying through this process of mutual adjustment brings one closer to narrow reflective equilibrium: coherence among one’s initial beliefs.

Beliefs are intensional. The relevant extension changes when the knowledge base changes. I see a masked man shoot a cop in cold blood. It is my considered belief that the masked man should be hanged. Then I discover the masked man was actually my son. I am perfectly happy if some other guy is sentenced to life imprisonment. It is right that cop-killing masked men should be punished severely. But let it be some other guy, not my son, who gets that punishment. 

One then adds to this narrow equilibrium one’s responses to the major theories in the history of political philosophy,

all of which were stupid shit 

as well as one’s responses to theories critical of political philosophizing as such.

that response was a derisive fart 

One continues to adjust one’s scheme of beliefs as one reflects on these alternatives, aiming for the end-point of wide reflective equilibrium, in which coherence is maintained after many alternatives have been considered.

i.e. if we were paid to teach shite, we end up polishing a particularly obnoxious turd.  

Because of its emphasis on coherence, reflective equilibrium is often contrasted with foundationalism as an account of justified belief.

Justification arises from verification save in so far as it is protocol bound and buck stopped. But, in that case what is intensional or 'de jure' is supervenient on what is extensional or 'de facti'. Facts change as the knowledge base changes and verification is what establishes facts. No fucking a priori 'reflection' greatly matters.  

Within foundationalist approaches, some subset of beliefs is considered to be unrevisable, thereby serving as a foundation on which all other beliefs are to be based.

This is a protocol. But, if you aren't contractually bound to do so, why observe any such beasties? 

Reflective equilibrium privileges no such subset of beliefs: any belief at any level of generality is subject to revision, if revision will help to bring one’s considered convictions into greater coherence overall.

Shit may cohere better than piss but shit it remains. 

Consider the following

 Rawls’s doctrine of public reason can be summarized as follows:

Citizens engaged in certain political activities have a duty of civility to be able to justify their decisions on fundamental political issues by reference only to public values and public standards.

This is an arbitrary assertion. It can't be justified. The fact is, essentially 'political activities', as opposed to administrative or judicial actions, or the routine of careerist or collegial give and take, must be wholly gratuitous or supererogatory and thus involve no duty whatsoever.  It is a different matter that positive law may be invoked to punish political activities of this type, but the existence of a sanction does not itself create a duty. The Mafia Don may order the execution of a legislator who campaigns for RICO type laws. But the legislator has no duty to justify himself to the  values or standards represented by that Don even if they correspond to those of the public at large. The same is true of the values and standards of a governing elite. It is perfectly proper for 'political activities' to subvert governance of this type. If Treason prosper none call it Treason/ E'er such is Public Reason. 

It is a different matter to say that there is a 'canon' of civility such that decisions have such and such valuable features. But a canon is not a duty. In any case, Rawl's proposal is decidedly sub-optimal if not actively mischievous. It is not a canonical solution. It is a stupid and arbitrary and self-defeating stipulation.