Reflective Equilibrium

Nussbaum abandons justificatory strategies of Aristotelian internalist essentialism and the narrative approach in her later development of capabilities in favor of reflective equilibrium and overlapping consensus. I aim to argue, however, that she never escapes the problems identified here; that is, she continues to arbitrarily select others in order to make the claim that the capabilities from her list have received cross-cultural validity. If one accepts that her early methods of justification are subject to this criticism, then I believe this gives reason to pause when discussing the validity of overlapping consensus given that it requires showing that competing worldviews that are incompatible in some ways can nonetheless be compatible with her list, as well as the validity of attaining reflective equilibrium which, for Nussbaum, requires imagining the ways in which other perspectives would challenge and support her list.

2.3 Reflective Equilibrium

Nussbaum advocates wide rather than narrow reflective equilibrium, which includes scrutinizing one conception of justice against other conceptions of justice. This form of equilibrium is meant to avoid the problem of simply establishing internal coherence because it actively seeks out competing theories of justice and uses them to challenge one’s own commitments. Nussbaum is unique in her conception of wide

reflective equilibrium since for her it is not merely an individual endeavor. She likens her process to Rawls as one of a “multivocal character: justification is achieved not by individuals acting alone but by debate among Socratically deliberating individuals (Nussbaum 2011b, 77).” She continues, “I appeal to the interlocutor to ponder what is implicit in the notion of human dignity and a life in accordance with it. I ask the

interlocutor to consider that certain ways of life that human beings are forced to lead are not fully human, in the sense of being not worthy of the dignity of the human being” (78).

The fact that Nussbaum specifies the need to discuss the notion of human dignity with actual others shows a progression of thought. Critics such as Ackerly, Jaggar, and Okin have all argued that Nussbaum has justified her theory primarily based on what she believes others would say and not real discussions. Considering these feminist critics wrote their respective pieces before 2011, one could surmise that Nussbaum is

responding to her critics. I find her attempt to incorporate actual dialogue in one of her justifications to be a promising step forward.

Nonetheless, despite this development, Nussbaum never describes how these dialogues should occur and who should participate. Furthermore, she never explains how to adjudicate between competing claims of the theorizer performing the task of striving for reflective equilibrium and her discussions with her interlocutor. That is, it could be the case that her discussions conflict with her own pursuit of equilibrium;then Nussbaum is in position to be the ultimate arbiter in regard to whether or not she finds her

interlocutor’s claims valid. I find this particularly troubling because it shows that her theory again allows her to run the risk of simply ignoring other worldviews that challenge her perspective.

The point to take from Nussbaum’s discussion is that one cannot achieve

equilibrium on this model without engaging an interlocutor to determine if her theoretical commitments can genuinely stand critical scrutiny. So a theorist cannot simply state what she believes constitutes another’s considered judgments based on the theorist’s

imagination, but rather must actually speak to other people and secure their informed

desires and considered judgments as they state them. By “informed,” Nussbaum means desires that have been subject to scrutiny from multiple perspectives. Informed, as opposed to naïve desires, are those that have withstood rational scrutiny by others.

It is important to note that for Nussbaum one need not consider all intuitions or viewpoints. She asks us to “consult not all actual desires, but only some of them, desires formed under appropriate conditions” (Nussbaum 2000b, 160). It is not clear what she means by “appropriate,” but given her commitment to liberalism, it’s fair to say that it would include an individual who has the opportunity to exercise her autonomy in regards to forming her desires and intuitions so that her desires are not the result of coercion. So despite Nussbaum’s understanding of reflective equilibrium as having a “multivocal character,” we must be highly discretionary when selecting desires in order to avoid incorporating harmful ones, which might corrupt our theory. Nussbaum’s version of reflective equilibrium then cannot be performed individually, but with other deliberating individuals. Here, a theorizer must engage in dialogue with others in order to subject her views to scrutiny, which then makes her desires informed. The advantage of dialoguing with an interlocutor is to minimize the risk of a theorizer merely gleaning information from other perspectives that she then subsumes under her own.

A further problem with Nussbaum’s version of reflective equilibrium, though, is that by not seeking all intuitions, she runs the risk of arbitrarily choosing intuitions that match her own. She does not give us an account of what constitutes “appropriate conditions” for desire formation, and we have no sense of her criteria for discerning among intuitions which makes it too easy for her to exclude as “uninformed” any intuitions that diverge from her own. Furthermore, because Nussbaum is a Western

academic who has much power and privilege, it is easy for her to ignore or exclude (however unintentionally) the perspectives of those less powerful without consequence.

In order to avoid this charge, she needs to offer a method that shows she is not simply choosing to converse with those who share her worldview to confirm her fixed moral judgments. Moreover, in virtue of Nussbaum’s position of power, she is in charge of selecting informed from uninformed intuitions without any clear criteria. This, in turn, gives “additional worries about moral elitism and possibly neo-colonialism” (Jaggar 2006, 316).

Nkiru Nzegwu, for instance, contends that Nussbaum interprets indigenous cultures as “inert,” that is, as “obsolete and not thought to have any significant initiating or critical role to play in industrialization” (Nzegwu 1995, 460). In brief, if individuals within Igbo (or any other indigenous) culture were hesitant to adopt education as a central capability, Nussbaum would consider them “misinformed” or “lacking full information”.

However, placing less value on literacy is not a matter of misunderstanding the nature of education (since Nussbaum conflates education with literacy), but a matter of situating the value of a certain kind of education within the socio-economic and historical context of a local region.

Furthermore, Nussbaum’s method of selecting intuitions lacks a feedback loop to check her own intuitions against non-arbitrary others. In other words, because she subjects her list to scrutiny from those who share her values, rather than those who disagree, there is no genuine opportunity for self-criticism. Instead, other viewpoints are used merely to reinforce the values espoused on the list. However, self-criticism is especially important to ensure we are not merely claiming to achieve equilibrium by

critically examining our intuitions and theories, while simultaneously not taking other worldviews seriously. In other words, theorists cannot claim to have reached equilibrium without discussing and challenging their own considered judgments by other actual people. Nussbaum’s decision not to consider all intuitions makes it too easy for her to import in and rationalize her own values free from critical scrutiny.

David Clark (2013) summarizes the above concern succinctly in his review of Nussbaum’s 2011 book, Creating Capabilities: “there is no assurance that everyone’s intuitions will be consulted or that social inequalities…will not affect the pursuit of reflective equilibrium in ways that are hard to detect” (176). The process to attain full equilibrium, which Nussbaum admits may not be possible, includes engaging others who do not share one’s own commitments, and then deciding whether our theory of justice is able to withstand the criticisms. However, as I have argued, there is no way to show that other people who endorse comprehensive doctrines not shared with the theorizer have played a genuine role in Nussbaum’s pursuit of equilibrium. Furthermore, she has not provided a fair procedure to decide whether her theory of justice can withstand potential criticism. In sum, Nussbaum has not addressed two primary issues—first, how to select interlocutors and (2) who decides, and how do we decide, whether a theory can withstand robust criticism from divergent perspectives.

The criticisms surrounding Nussbaum’s methods of selecting intuitions are not limited to reflective equilibrium, but also plague internalist essentialism and the narrative approach, and so remain throughout both the flourishing and dignity versions of the capabilities. This criticism calls into question the cross-cultural support Nussbaum claims for her list, which in turn raises skepticism about her final method of justification—

overlapping consensus—since it demands appeal from a wide range of comprehensive doctrines.