John Rawls’ reflective equilibrium is the method of “testing theories against judgments about particular cases, but also testing judgments about particular cases against theories, until equilibrium is achieved” (Blackburn 2008, 312; quoted in @2020clarke-doaneMorality, 46). Upon discovering that a general theory and a particular judgment conflict in a given case, “achieving RE demands that one or the other is abandoned or modified to resolve the conflict” (@2022awadComputational).
Some example applications of reflective equilibrium include:
- In Rawls’ field of moral philosophy, RE describes a process of bringing commitments to abstract, general moral principles in alignment with intuitive moral judgements about particular cases, as well as accounting for scientific knowledge about inconsistencies and contradictions;
- In mathematical discovery, plausible propositions are first identified, and then axioms are defined to systematize them (see also: The epistemological priority of mathematical principles typically precedes their logical priority, after Russell (1907)).
Rawls credited this method to Goodman, e.g., @1983goodmanFact.