Reflective equilibrium and equipoise
I can't believe, or don't want to, that it's nearly 15 years since I posted -
h2cm and clinical equipoise in 2010.
In a post to follow, in London 4-7th July I came across a book by Edouard Machery and upon return up north, found a paper which refers to reflective equilibrium. This, one again technical or not, is a purpose of Hodges' model.
Machery, Edouard, Philosophy Within Its Proper Bounds (Oxford, 2017; online edn, Oxford Academic, 24 Aug. 2017), https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198807520.001.0001, accessed 24 June 2025.
Reflective equilibrium has an entry in the The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
'If you believe that conduct in some case is right or wrong, you have a moral judgment or intuition. 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 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).
John Rawls proposed to address these concerns through the method of reflective equilibrium.We first ensure that our judgments are considered, being made in circumstances appropriate for moral deliberation. We are then to consider general principles that might accommodate our set of considered judgments—and more than that, explain and extend them. 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)
This requires that we reflect on a wide range of principles, arguments, and theories. Equilibrium is reached where principles and judgments have been revised such that they agree with each other. In short, the method of reflective equilibrium is the mutual adjustment of principles and judgments in the light of relevant argument and theory.'
The encyclopaedia entry is informative for studies here. I will revisit clinical equipoise in the near future; and bring in the idea of 'holistic bandwidth'.
Rawls, John, 1971, A Theory of Justice, Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
orcid.org/0000-0002-0192-8965
