Abstract

Rawlsian reflective equilibrium involves taking our intuitions about what one ought and ought not to do in specific situations, such as you ought not to steal that chicken. One then tries to develop a system composed of a few general principles which entail that chicken, more generally entail one’s intuitions about what one ought and ought not to do. But there is room for sacrificing an intuition if one has a mostly successful system: if it entails most of one’s intuitions, though not all. (Outcome: the boundaries of African countries?) But did Rawlsian reflective equilibrium arise from nowhere, or in a flash of inspiration, my good men? I speculate that something like reflective equilibrium existed with the development of sporting rules long before. In England: one does not simply dream up a sport with its rules, rather one takes a set of players or player types and devises rules which favour those players.