The Way We Reason Now: Reflective Equilibrium in Bioethics

In Bonnie Steinbock, The Oxford handbook of bioethics. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 46--71 (2007)
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Abstract

This article begins with some preliminary remarks about the general features and basic varieties of reflective equilibrium in moral reflection. It then considers a couple of preliminary doubts about this method. One of these doubts claims that the most plausible interpretation of RE is so comprehensive that it risks paralyzing our thinking, while the other claims that this same version of RE is insufficiently determinate in practical contexts and will thus fail to be sufficiently action-guiding. The article then explicates the sense in which RE qualifies as a coherence theory of justification, and considers several objections to RE that flow from its reliance on the putative connection between coherence and moral justification.

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Citations of this work

Theory and bioethics.J. Flynn - 2021 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Framing the Gamer's Dilemma.Michael Hemmingsen - 2024 - Ethics and Information Technology 26 (59):1-10.
Reflective equilibrium and moral objectivity.Sem de Maagt - 2017 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 60 (5):443-465.

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