that its scope of justification is limited to particular societies and that political liberalism has not a justificatory force beyond those societies which do not have an already established liberal democracy, with a long tradition.This chapter is aimed to rebut the dominant reading of political liberalism in part it assumes later Rawls has nothing to offer to those societies which are willing to establish liberal democracy only for the first time. As Scanlon puts: “Rawls offers what might
be seen as three ideas of justification: the method of reflective equilibrium, the derivation of principles in the original position, and the idea of public reason” (Scanlon, “Justification” 139). In this chapter, I will argue that the reflective equilibrium as one of the three significant justificatory tools which are available in political liberalism, has a universal status. The next chapter deals with the original position and political constructivism.In this dissertation I will not focus on the public reason despite few remarks in chapter IV.
For Rawls political philosophy studies political questions at many different levels of generality and abstractness, all valuable and important. The questions of how a just democratic regime is achievable in the domestic level, and how a reasonable Society of Peoples is possible in the international level, are two significant questions for Rawls. Both of these questions may be answered on due reflection (another term Rawls uses for the reflective equilibrium) and each has its own model of the original position (LoP 30-35).
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Reflective equilibrium has a significant role in Rawls’s view of political philosophy
as a critical enterprise. Among others, Habermas also admits this point.41 The reflective equilibrium has a significant role in matching our considered judgments with the political conception. For Rawls, both in PL and TJ, political philosophy is primarily aimed to figure out a conception of justice which “best approximates our considered judgments of justice and constitutes the most appropriate moral basis for a democratic society”(TJ xviii). But how the
reflective equilibrium is modeled in Rawlsian political philosophy?
In PL Rawls argues that in discussing his philosophy we should be careful to distinguish between three points of views: that of “the parties in the original position”(hereafter v1), that of “citizens in a well-ordered society”(hereafter v2), and finally that of “ourselves-of
you and me who are elaborating justice as fairness and examining it as a political conception of justice”(hereafter v3) (PL 28).42
It is the third point of view (v3) with which reflective equilibrium is concerned. As we will see in the next chapter, the original position deals with the first (v1) and second views (v2). V3 belongs to you and me, here and now who are involved in the reflective equilibrium. As will see, all individuals in all civil societies of the world are able to enter into a dialogue which Rawlsian philosophy (particularly speaking his notion of justice as fairness) via the wide reflective equilibrium and are able to be the audiences of the main arguments of TJ, PL and LoP. Put in other words, this is v3 where real and living individuals throughout the world may get involved in the justification for justice as fairness in a reflective equilibrium. To quote Rawls, “the third point of view—that of you and me—is that from which
41 View: Jurgen Habermas, “Reasonable versus True or Morality of Worldviews”, in the Inclusion of the Other:
Studies in Political Theory”, pp. 75-104, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1998, 97ff.
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justice as fairness, and indeed any other political conception, is to be assessed” (PL 28). Reflecting “the reflective equilibrium”, v3 exemplifies the philosophical deliberations of me and
you, here and now, as members of the global civil society. The reflective equilibrium is a test to see how justice as fairness, regarded as a whole, articulates one’s more firm considered convictions of political justice, “at all levels of generality, after the examinations, once all
adjustments and revisions that seem compelling have been made” (PL 28). A conception of justice that meets this test is the conception that, so far as we can ascertain, is “the one most reasonable” for the person who is involved in the process.
The reflective equilibrium is not a paternalistic way; rather it is a method of philosophical deliberation. Still, it provides the critical moral support of the political philosopher for those individuals who are struggling against dictatorship. Via the reflective equilibrium liberal political theory offers a critical way of thinking and justifying justice to the pro- democracy persons in societies which are frustrated with the theocratic or dictatorial institutions (See Introduction to Part One), as it proposes a critical way of thinking to citizens of liberal societies. The method of reflective equilibrium extends the Rawlsian justifications for constitutional democracy to include Muslim majority and other nonwestern societies, even in case they do not have a democratic constitution for the moment. Considering the method of wide reflective equilibrium, the justification Rawls proposes for justice as fairness has a global status.
According to the reflective equilibrium, no justification for a political conception of justice, and no setting for original position, is valid unless it is able to put in order what Rawls calls our considered judgments of justice at all levels of generality. In wide reflective equilibrium we have to take into account the view of other individuals with whom we live in the same country, even though we disagree with them. We continue this until we reach to the most
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reasonable account of justice and the most reasonable setting for the original position: “we may
reaffirm our more particular judgments and decide instead to modify the proposed conception of justice with its principles and ideals until judgments at all levels of generality are at last in line on due reflection” (PL 45).
Furthermore, the method of reflective equilibrium connects the abstract dimensions of the original position to the living world and avoids political philosophy to be detached from the society and the world. The debate between Rawls and Walzer on the meaning and role of political philosophy is illustrating here. As one of distinguished communitarian critiques of Rawls, Walzer interpreted the original position as arguing in a “great distance from the social world”. Rawls, Walzer claimed, walks “out of the cave”, leaves “the city”, climbs “the mountain” and fashions for himself “an objective and universal standpoint” that “can never be
fashioned for ordinary men and women”. “Then he describes the terrain of everyday life from far away, so that it loses its particular contours and takes on a general shape.” Pointing to Rawls’s the original position Walzer argued that “Justice and equality can conceivably be
worked out as philosophical artifacts, but a just or an egalitarian society cannot be. If such a society isn’t already here—hidden, as it were, in our concepts of categories—we will never know it concertedly or realize it in fact.” For Walzer political philosophy is “radically particularist”
and the political philosopher interprets to her fellow citizens the world of meanings that they share in that particular community (Walzer, Spheres xiv).
The last session of the first lecture of PL, called “On the Use of Abstract Conceptions”, is indeed Rawls’s respond to Walzer in particular, and communitarianism in
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transition and crisis, which are characterized by deep conflicts. We appeal to philosophical deliberation when we are in two minds about our ideas:
We turn to political philosophy when our shared political understandings, as Walzer might say, break down, and equally when we are torn within ourselves. We recognize this if we imagine Alexander Stephens rejecting Lincoln’s appeal to the abstractness of natural right and replying to him by saying: the North must respect the South’s
shared political understandings on the slavery question. Surely the reply to this would lead into political philosophy (PL 44-45).
If political philosophy is simply as uncritical interpretation of shared political understandings of a particular community, Rawls argues, Alexander Stephans and others who supported slavery in South would be justified in their claims. Slavery was the shared political understanding of the South in the famous South-North division before American civil war in 19th century. Of course we have to reject slavery even if it is part of “our” shared values. In the
process of the reflective equilibrium, we may reaffirm our more firm judgments and shared understandings, modifying the proposed conception of justice, or may do vice versa. We continue this process until our judgments at all levels of generality are in line on due reflection (PL 45). Thus, the reflective equilibrium provides a deep connection between the abstract notion of the original position and our everyday, though firm, intuitions about justice (considered convictions). Thus the reflective equilibrium does not occur in vacuum, in isolation from the society and the world. In addition, the reflective equilibrium connects the original position (as the more abstract dimension of justification) and our considered judgments (as the more intuitive
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part) so that they complement each other in “a coherent view of justification for the political conception” (PL 45). To conclude, political philosophy is not indifferent to the social world and the context. The notions of reflective equilibrium and considered judgments, among other conceptions, exemplify a deep connection between the abstract dimensions of justice as fairness, and the real situation of external world.