Making Reflective Equlibrium Precise: A Formal Model

Reflective equilibrium (RE) is often regarded as a powerful method in ethics, logic, and even philosophy in general. Despite this popularity, characterizations of the method have been fairly vague and unspecific so far. It thus may be doubted whether RE is more than a jumble of appealing but ultimately sketchy ideas that cannot be spelled out consistently. In this paper, we dispel such doubts by devising a formal model of RE. The model contains as components the agent’s commitments and a theory that tries to systematize the commitments. It yields a precise picture of how the commitments and the theory are adjusted to each other. The model differentiates between equilibrium as a target state and the dynamic equilibration process. First solutions to the model, obtained by computer simulation, show that the method allows for consistent specification and that the model’s implications are plausible in view of expectations on RE. In particular, the mutual adjustment of commitments and theory can improve one’s commitments, as proponents of RE have suggested. We argue that our model is fruitful not only because it points to issues that need to be dealt with for a better understanding of RE, but also because it provides the means to address these issues.

A Healthy Metaphor? The North Sea Consultation and the Power of Words

The North Sea Consultation was set up to resolve conflicting claims for space in the North Sea. In 2020, this consultation process resulted in the North Sea Agreement, which was supported by the Dutch Parliament and cabinet as a long-term policy; however, the fishing sector felt excluded, left the consultation process, and does not support the agreement. Using semi-constructed interviews and the method of wide reflective equilibrium, this research found that in this conflict the metaphor of ‘health’ has played a decisive role. While all stakeholders want to keep the sea ‘healthy’, they disagree on what a healthy sea actually means, leading to contrastive positions on the desirability of trawler fishing, wind parks, and conservation areas—the North Sea Agreement’s main foci of interest. To prevent the unproductive escalation of such a conflict, it is inevitable to acknowledge the moral connotations of such metaphors, as this allows a decision-making process that can be considered more just.

Die rol van die ouerhuis in die intergenerasionele geloofsvorming van die jeug in belang van ’n geïntegreerde jeugbediening

The role of the parental home in the intergenerational faith formation of the youth for the sake of an integrated youth ministry. This article deals with the following question: What is the role of parents in the intergenerational faith formation of the youth for the sake of an integrated youth ministry? Several studies nationally and internationally have convincingly pointed out that parents have the biggest influence on their children’s faith formation. However, parents are currently still not sufficiently inclusively involved or supported in youth ministry. Osmer’s fourfold reflective equilibrium model forms the frame for how this article is structured. Nel’s theory of inclusive youth ministry is used as a theological framework from which the role of parents in intergenerational faith formation is investigated. The empirical research (quantitative, as well qualitative) was conducted among 175 parents and 10 ministers coming from 29 congregations in the Noordelike, Oostelike, Hoëveld- and Goudland synods of the Dutch Reformed Church. These congregations all have a family and/or intergenerational focus in their (youth) ministry. The research has shown that youth ministry cannot by means of programmes, structures and even relationships in any way replace the important role played by parents in the lives of their children, regardless of what happens in the youth ministry. When the parental home and youth ministries do not act as partners in the faith formation process, it does not only lead to weak faith, but also to a lack of commitment, unsustainability and ultimately alienation. Youth ministries can therefore not function effectively without an integrated ministry, which includes the parental home. With all the challenges threatening their capacity, the parental home can also not function effectively as faith mediators without an inclusive youth ministry. The research thus clearly indicates that Nel’s theory of inclusive youth ministry, is not only noteworthy, but it is also in the long term, necessary to work towards the congregation’s eschatalogical sustainability.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: Youth ministries do not involve parents as the core part of their ministry. When youth ministries integrate parents into their ministry, children will be better guided in their faith formation. This adjustment calls for a paradigm shift in the focus of traditional youth ministry. Intergenerational faith formation in this study was approached within the framework of Practical Theology, Congregational Development and Youth Ministry.

Learning

This chapter presents a framework for learning across boundaries, including concepts of mutuality, interaction, and co-production. It begins with insights on integrative learning in interdisciplinary education, grounded in a shift from content-based to process-based integration, the theory of constructivism, and the concept of reflective equilibrium. After noting parallels with transdisciplinarity, it examines the nature of social learning, anchoring discussion in four theoretical discourses for interdisciplinarity and interprofessionalism (Communities of Practice, Critical-Historical Activity, Complexity Science, and Actor-Network Theory). Turning more specifically to trans-disciplinary work, the chapter examines mechanisms of learning in a communication boundary space, while incorporating concepts of triple-loop learning, reflexivity, convergence, transactivity, and heuristics. Finally, after identifying individual and collective competencies, as well as characteristics of cross-sector expertise, the chapter concludes by drawing insights from case studies across sector boundaries, beginning with a sustainability project in the East India Plateau and followed by healthcare in two hospitals.

Ethics review, reflective equilibrium and reflexivity

Background: Research Ethics Committees (RECs) or their equivalent review applications for prospective research with human participants. Reviewers use universally agreed principles i to make decisions about whether prospective health and social care research is ethical. Close attention to understanding how reviewers go about their decision-making work and consider principles in practice is limited. Objective: The study aimed to understand how reviewers made decisions in the contexts of meetings and to understand more about how reviewers approach their work. The purpose of this article is to draw on data and findings and to show how reflective equilibrium as a theoretical frame can (1) deepen understanding of ethics review and (2) permit a reflexive examination of the habitual processes of review. Design and participants: Methods captured the day-to-day work of the RECs. Seventeen applications were heard during eight observations. There were 12 formal interviews with reviewers (n = 12) and with researchers (n = 8) which are not reported on in this article. Ethical considerations: Organisational permission for the study was given by the National Research Ethics Service (NRES) whose functions became part of the Health Research Authority (HRA) during the study. The study was given favourable opinion by the University of Salford's REC (Reference HSCR11/17). Findings: Data were analysed using constructed grounded theory resulting in eight themes which revealed attention to procedure and engagement with applications. Reflective equilibrium was used as a qualitative frame to interpret themes distilling them into three processes at work in review: emotion and intuition; imagination and creative thinking; and intuition and trust. Discussion: Reviewers went back and forth between universal principles and considered these in the contexts of each application using the above processes. Conclusions: Reflective equilibrium offers a coherent and grounded account of review work. Reflexivity in training for reviewers is essential for improving practices. The challenges reflexivity presents can be assisted by using reflective equilibrium as a tool to illuminate tacit review processes.

Methodology for the metaphysics of pregnancy

One of the central questions in the metaphysics of pregnancy is this: Is the foetus a part of the mother? In this paper I aim not to answer this question, but rather to raise methodological concerns regarding how to approach answering it. I will outline how various areas attempt to answer whether the foetus is a part of the mother so as to demonstrate the methodological problems that each faces. My positive suggestion will be to adopt a method of reflective equilibrium. The aim of this is to ensure that pregnancy be included in the tribunal of experience that our theories are held up against such that our theories can accommodate what we say about pregnancy, whilst also ensuring that what we say about pregnancy be theoretically informed. That way, we rethink pregnancy in light of our theories as well as rethinking our theories in light of pregnancy.

In the Region of Middle Axioms: Judicial Dialogue as Wide Reflective Equilibrium and Mid-level Principles

This article addresses the use of foreign law in constitutional adjudication. We draw on the ideas of wide reflective equilibrium and public reason in order to defend an engagement model of comparative adjudication. According to this model, the judicial use of foreign law is justified if it proceeds by testing and mutually adjusting the principles and rulings of our constitutional doctrines against reasonable alternatives, as represented by the principles and rulings of other reasonable doctrines. By this, a court points to a wide reflective equilibrium, justifying its own interpretations with reasonable arguments, i.e. arguments that are acceptable from the perspectives defined by other constitutional doctrines, as endorsed by other courts. The point of a judicial engagement of this sort is to work out an overlap between different, reasonable, doctrines in the judicial forum, as part of a liberal forum of public reason. Here, the exercise of public reason filters out the premises of comprehensive doctrines so as to leave us in the region of an overlapping consensus: a region of mid-level principles that can be shared, notwithstanding the fact of legal pluralism.

Metasemantics for the Relaxed

This chapter discusses how to meet the ‘generalized integration challenge’ as a relaxed moral realist by providing a metasemantics of moral vocabulary which is compatible with relaxing about moral metaphysics and epistemology. Employing normative inferentialism and focussing on evaluative moral terms in particular, it is suggested that evaluative moral terms function to explain proprieties of language exit transitions, where having this function amounts to systematizing language exit transitions through a process of reflective equilibrium. Crucially, this inferentialist take on explanatory function does not engender any substantive metaphysical commitments about moral properties. Moreover, the systematization process on which it is based is undertaken from within moral discourse. As such, understanding evaluative terms as tools that systematize language exits fits perfectly with the relaxed take on moral discourse.

Parfit’s Final Arguments in Normative Ethics

This paper starts by juxtaposing the normative ethics in the final part of Parfit’s final book, On What Matters, volume iii (2017), with the normative ethics in his earlier books, Reasons and Persons (1984) and On What Matters, volume i (2011). The paper then addresses three questions. The first is, where does the reflective-equilibrium methodology that Parfit endorsed in the first volume of On What Matters lead? The second is, is the Act-involving Act Consequentialism that Parfit considers in the final volume of On What Matters as plausible as Rossian deontology? The third is, how is the new argument that Parfit puts forward for Rule Consequentialism supposed to work?