Justice is about justiciability which is restricted and generally protocol bound. Where this is the case, there is an 'interpretation' of existing principles or rules. Interpretations are epistemic and change as the knowledge base changes. Moreover, because of impredicativity, unicity or naturality may be lacking. Finally, it should be noted, Knowledge is a disequilibrium phenomenon driven by cognitive dissonance.
Social Choice theorists and other such shitheads indulged in cascading intensional fallacies while ignoring the importance of 'interpretation' and the 'far from equilibrium' nature of knowledge systems.
A case in point is Rawl's reflective equilibrium which refers to 'the mutual adjustment of principles and judgments in the light of relevant argument and theory'. This just means that there is no pressure to alter either accepted principles or judgments under given circumstances.
The problem here is that principles can be interpreted in different ways such that, ceteris paribus, the same judgment is made by different people or different judgments are made by the same person. In other words, 'reflective equilibrium' is 'anything goes'. After all, when our interpretation of a principle or a judgment changes, it is not the case that the principle or judgement has itself changed. This is because interpretations are 'epistemic' and based on our knowledge base. Neither principles, not judgments are. However, unless principles can be shown to be independent of each other, or no new principle can be shown to subsume two or more existing principles, then 'mutual adjustment' with judgments is not efficient. In other words, the process of arriving at it could be streamlined. This means, if there is 'utility' in having principles, then there is more utility in rejecting an existing cozy little 'mutual adjustment' so as to get better judgments. This is particularly important because of 'Knightian Uncertainty'. Unanticipated states of the world require principles of more general import or application. This can be seen in the evolution of case law where a particular principle is given a more general interpretation such that it subsumes certain other principles or reduces their scope such that they designate a type or category. In other words, they serve a descriptive function or are mere 'terms of art'.
Different jurisdictions may have different principles, yet because interpretation changes as the knowledge base changes, judgments may converge. But this isn't Rawls's 'reflective equilibrium'. It is a case of different jurisdictions competing with each other for fear of falling behind economically or engendering a political or social backlash.
Carl Knight, in an article for the Stanford Encyclopaedia, asserts
If you believe that conduct in some case is right or wrong, you have a moral judgment or intuition.
Not necessarily. Your judgment might be aesthetic, or a matter of social convention or wholly strategic or self-serving.
Perhaps you have many such judgments about different cases. You might, nevertheless, consider that judgments alone do not justify the moral views they express.
You might nevertheless consider yourself to be a pussy cat chasing mice on the rings of Uranus.
You and your moral interlocutors might be concerned that “what we actually accept is fraught with idiosyncrasy and vulnerable to vagaries of history and personality” (Elgin 1996: 108) or displays “irregularities and distortions” (Rawls 1971: 48).
You might also be teaching worthless shite to imbeciles. Meanwhile kids you were at skool with, who did STEM subjects, are making the world a better place.
John Rawls proposed to address these
stupid
concerns through the
even more stupid
method of reflective equilibrium. We first ensure that our judgments are considered, being made in circumstances appropriate for moral deliberation.
But those circumstances may only arise by reason of some immoral or repugnant asymmetry of power or influence. 'Judge not lest ye be judged' is a sound enough maxim.
We are then to consider general principles that might accommodate our set of considered judgments—and more than that, explain and extend them.
What better 'general principle' is there than 'judge not' ? The proper reflective equilibrium for any person who reflects upon their own inequities or relative ignorance, is one which seeks greater understanding, not more and more 'moral intuitions' which, at bottom, tend to be foolish, mischievous, or otherwise repugnant.
On the standard wide reflective equilibrium, we are to consider
'all possible descriptions to which one might plausibly conform one’s judgments together with all relevant philosophical arguments for them. (Rawls 1971: 49)'
'All possible descriptions' is an 'intension' whose extension is epistemic, impredicative and, because of Knightian Uncertainty, unknowable. Nobody can 'conform' with what is unknowable. This is the intensional fallacy writ large. The same holds for 'all relevant philosophical arguments'.
This requires that we reflect on a wide range of principles, arguments, and theories.
Which is like saying 'we must conform with what we would want to conform with were we omniscient Gods. This requires us to chop off our own heads and shove those heads so far up our poopers that they reappear on top of our necks. Just keep doing this till you gain the power to create a nice new multiverse of your own.'
Equilibrium is reached where principles and judgments have been revised such that they agree with each other.
One could speak of Judge Hercules who achieves 'harmonious construction'. But, he is omniscient. We aren't. All we can do is make provisional judgments when we have to while recognizing that all principles are defeasible and sublatable- i.e. they will be replaced by something better as our knowledge base expands or our Structural Causal Models improve.
In short, the method of reflective equilibrium is the mutual adjustment of principles and judgments in the light of relevant argument and theory.
But that 'relevant argument and theory' must be the one provided by smart peeps who didn't waste their time teaching or studying useless shite. Even there, the 'regret minimizing' strategy would be to hedge your bets and experiment a little at the margin. In other words, don't apply the judgment in all cases. See what happens when it isn't done.
Reflective equilibrium is the dominant method in moral and political philosophy (McPherson 2015: 652; Anderson 2015; de Maagt 2017: 444).
Because both turned to stupid shit long ago. The great thing about the intensional fallacy is that it provides an algorithmic method to crank our more and more virtue signalling nonsense under the rubric of scholarship.
Its advocates suggest that “it is the only rational game in town for the moral theorist” or “the only defensible method” (DePaul 1993: 6; Scanlon 2003: 149; see also Freeman 2007: 35–36; Floyd 2017: 377–378).
If you are stupid but want to teach shit, it is rational to embrace the intensional fallacy. But you can make more money teaching people how to levitate.
Though often endorsed, it is far more frequently used. Wherever a philosopher presents principles, motivated by arguments and examples, they are likely to be using the method.
No. Nobody can use this method just as nobody can levitate. Still, one might change or 're-word' principles to make them sound less stupid or out of date. Thus instead of the sound Kantian principle that Niggers are stupid and thus we should ignore what they say, we might have a principle of epistemic eligibility such that only Niggers who repeat our brand of stupid shite are deemed worthy of listening to.
They are adjusting their principles—and with luck, their readers’—to the judgments suggested by the arguments and examples. Alternatively they might “bite the bullet” by adjusting initially discordant judgments to accommodate otherwise appealing principles. Either way, they are usually describing a process of reflective equilibrium, with principles adjusted to judgments or vice versa.
No. They are merely making feasible adjustments. Reflective equilibrium requires infeasible adjustment of a sort which can only be made 'at the end of mathematical time'.
Reflective equilibrium is a formal expression of standard methodological practice in moral and political philosophy.
Which is why both have turned to shit.
While the distinction between judgments and principles may intuitively correspond to that between the particular and the general,
[p]eople have considered judgments at all levels of generality, from those about particular situations and institutions up through broad standards and first principles to formal and abstract conditions on moral conceptions. (Rawls 1974: 8)
People have always thought that judgments should be made by judges who mention, in the 'ratio', what principle has been applied. People think that even judges, when not in court, merely have opinions or make decisions which they may or may not be able to justify by appealing to any particular principle.
A Society is considered to be well functioning when very few people ever have to appear before a Court of Law. As for 'moral philosophers', they are merely a glorified type of child minder for young people who aren't yet mature enough to get a job and start a family.
A first distinction is, then, that while principles necessarily generalize to more than one case (List & Valentini 2016; Slavny et al. 2021), judgments may be either general or particular.
It is perfectly possible to have a principle which applies in one and only one case. This is like the 'halacha vein morin kein' by which it was permissible for Phinehas to slay Zimri & Kosbi. However knowledge of this law forbids the very action it would otherwise dictate. As for judgments, they may simply be ineffective or futile.
A second distinction is that judgments express an agent’s moral outlook
they may do. They may not. But anything at all may express moral outlook. I do it with farts.
while principles are candidate representations of that outlook
That may be true of 'moral principles'. But that would be only be a small subset of one's principles. Moreover, one's moral principles may be overridden by other principles. Thus I might think it immoral to kill yet, as a member of a Jury, return a guilty verdict in a Capital case.
What is missing from this account is the importance of 'interpretation'. Principles are interpreted in a particular way to get a particular judgment. Why won't these shitheads admit this obvious truth?
In mathematics, interpretation is the process of giving meaning to mathematical expressions, such as symbols and formulas. The value that is assigned to an expression is called the interpretation of that expression. If there is a science of law or a 'Moral Science' then there is a deontic logic which has a mathematical representation. It is possible there is a canonical- i.e. unique and non-arbitrary (i.e. 'natural')- representation. But we know it won't be complete or include its own 'meta-language' or interpretation. Thus by the results of Godel, Tarski, Turing etc., this 'reflective equilibrium' is gibberish.In reflective equilibrium, judgments are the views actually held by the moral deliberator
but, speaking generally, they are inchoate. Moreover, one may change the interpretation even of one's own past judgments. Interpretation much more than principles or views or values, are essentially epistemic. They are bound to change as our knowledge base changes or our Structural Causal Models improve. Knowledge is a disequilibrium phenomenon. It is driven by cognitive dissonance. Pedants and Pundits may want to pretend otherwise. But we piss on their heads.
while a “scheme of principles represents their moral conception and characterizes their moral sensibility” (Rawls 1974: 7; see also Rawls 1971: 48).
No such 'scheme' has ever existed any more that there has been a 'scheme' according to which the timing and smelliness of our farts has been pre-established.
This section examines judgments, while the next considers principles.
1.1 Considered Judgments
The method of reflective equilibrium starts with judgments.
We make decisions. We have opinions. Judges make judgments. A protocol bound profession may require competent authorities to give something similar. In either case, the thing is defeasible. If a judgment is supported by a justification, then it may serve to create a 'public signal' which supports a superior Aumann correlated equilibria.
An initial question is which of these judgments should be allowed entry to the process.
All- by Rawls's previous stipulation. If even one is left out, there is no equilibrium.
An obvious position with some appeal is to allow any judgments or intuitions. A permissive view says that
[o]ur “intuitions” are simply opinions; our philosophical theories are the same. Some are commonsensical, some are sophisticated; some are particular, some general; some are more firmly held, some less. But they are all opinions, and a reasonable goal for a philosopher is to bring them into equilibrium … If our official theories disagree with what we cannot help thinking outside the philosophy room, then no real equilibrium has been reached. (Lewis 1983: x; cf. Goodman 1965: 63–64)
Moreover, any possible intuition must be included. But many possible intuitions are currently unknowable.
This might seem cavalier, but we are at the moment only discussing the starting point of the method. If reflective equilibrium does its job,
it can't. The thing isn't feasible.
our initial judgments may be transformed, and will at any rate cohere with theoretical considerations.
If we knew everything we may indeed be able to 'judge as gods' but, this may involve not judging at all
The mainstream view, by contrast, suggests that only considered judgments should be used in reflective equilibrium. These are “those judgments in which our moral capacities are least likely to be displayed without distortion” (Rawls 1971: 47).
Sadly, we know that the 'considered judgments' of our finest spiritual, moral, and judicial minds have been shit. They were creatures of a more ignorant and bigoted age. But, our kids are now old enough to say the same of us.
We should (1) be capable of reaching the right decision (e.g., be reasonably well informed),
sadly nobody knows if they have this capability
(2) be in circumstances where we can do so (e.g., not be scared or upset), and
You can be scared and upset and yet make the right call.
(3) be motivated to do so (e.g., not stand to gain or lose from the results of our deliberations).
Again, motivation may not matter.
In short, we should have the ability, opportunity, and desire to make the right decision (Rawls 1971: 48).
So, to make the right decisions we should be such that we couldn't not make the right decisions. This is a very important discovery. We can all levitate simply by being the sort of people who can't not levitate.
In moral and political philosophy, the judgments used in reflective equilibrium are usually these Rawlsian considered judgments.
Just as, in levitation, the levitational technique used is that which ensures levitation occurs.
I
1.2 The Confidence Constraint
Rawls proposes that “we can discard those judgments made with hesitation, or in which we have little confidence” (Rawls 1971: 47).
But that is itself a judgment. The problem with discarding it is that some very useful judgments too have to be discarded. Knowledge, as I said, is a disequilibrium phenomenon. In this case you are driven to do more research so as to have greater confidence in the 'key-stone' judgment. But, it may turn out our hesitation or lack of confidence is wrong-headed.
In other words, considered judgments are subject to a confidence constraint.
No. All judgments are defeasible. Confidence is irrelevant. We know in advance that it is misplaced in some particular which may or may not be very important indeed.
Relatedly, Rawls frequently refers to considered judgments as “convictions” (e.g., Rawls 1971: 19–21, 45, 48, 53, 246, 318–320, 447, 520, 580).
Our convictions may not be 'considered' while we ourselves may not be convinced by a judgment which is useful or, indeed, vital.
The confidence constraint extends to revisions of judgments, which must be made “with conviction and confidence” (Rawls 1974: 8). A more modest version of the confidence constraint is a compromise between the ideal of accounting for all judgments and practical limitations (Scanlon 2003: 144).
Why compromise with nonsense? Some people tend to be confident and optimistic. It is a personal trait. If you are speaking of 'confidence intervals', that is an empirical matter and relates to what can be treated as fact rather than an unsupported supposition.
1.3 The Epistemic Constraint
Considered judgments, even those that satisfy the confidence constraint, are not limited as to their content. One might have the ability, opportunity, and desire to make the right decision, yet make a grossly mistaken decision, and be confident in it (see Sternberg [ed.] 2002). This may motivate an epistemic constraint.
Or it may not. If it is important to make the judgment, we just do it already while admitting it may be wrong or not supported by any discoverable facts.
A modest version would exclude judgments that are logically inconsistent or founded on empirical error.
But we may be wrong about it being logically inconsistent or based on false information.
A more ambitious constraint excludes any unjustified or unwarranted beliefs (Kelly & McGrath 2010).
We don't know what is unwarranted. What we have are provisional beliefs. At some future point, it is likely they will be considered unjustified.
For example, Gerald Gaus comments that “clearly unjustified beliefs are, if anything, epistemic liabilities,” approvingly quoting Quine and Ullian’s suggestion that “insofar as we are rational, we will drop a belief when we have in vain tried to find evidence for it” (Gaus 1996: 86; Quine & Ullian 1970: 16).
Not if it is useful. Plenty of people find it useful to believe in a kind and loving God.
Friends of reflective equilibrium largely reject such a constraint. The basic complaint is that it makes epistemological determinations in advance of the reflective process where these are rather the proper upshot of that process. Reflective equilibrium can be viewed as a negative method, i.e., as what we’re left with when we decide that positive criteria for epistemic success cannot be laid out prior to fully considering our substantive topics (Walden 2013: 255). On this view, what counts as justification, warrant, or consistency should be decided with all relevant theory on the table as part of the process of reflective equilibrium and is not prescribed by the method itself.
Very true. It is only while levitating that you should consider how you came to levitate or why this has suddenly become possible for a creature without wings.
Rawls, it seems, was as big a fraud as the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. But the Maharishi died a billionaire.
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