TY - JOUR

T1 - Turning the trolley with reflective equilibrium

AU - Rechnitzer, Tanja

N1 - Funding Information: Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL. This work was funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation as part of the project “Reflective Equilibrium–Reconception and Application” (Number 150251).

PY - 2022/8

Y1 - 2022/8

N2 - Reflective equilibrium (RE)—the idea that we have to justify our judgments and principles through a process of mutual adjustment—is taken to be a central method in philosophy. Nonetheless, conceptions of RE often stay sketchy, and there is a striking lack of explicit and traceable applications of it. This paper presents an explicit case study for the application of an elaborate RE conception. RE is used to reconstruct the arguments from Thomson’s paper “Turning the Trolley” for why a bystander must not divert a runaway trolley from five workmen onto one. Analyzing Thomson’s resulting position with the RE-criteria has two main results: Firstly, the adjustment of one of her commitments can be defended. Secondly, no justified position in RE was reached. With respect to RE as a method, the main results from this application are: (1) There is at least one conception of RE that is sufficiently specified to be applicable; (2) the RE criteria put real constraints on the process of justification; and (3) an explicit application of RE has benefits in terms of clarity while at the same time providing guidance for how the justificatory process could be continued.

AB - Reflective equilibrium (RE)—the idea that we have to justify our judgments and principles through a process of mutual adjustment—is taken to be a central method in philosophy. Nonetheless, conceptions of RE often stay sketchy, and there is a striking lack of explicit and traceable applications of it. This paper presents an explicit case study for the application of an elaborate RE conception. RE is used to reconstruct the arguments from Thomson’s paper “Turning the Trolley” for why a bystander must not divert a runaway trolley from five workmen onto one. Analyzing Thomson’s resulting position with the RE-criteria has two main results: Firstly, the adjustment of one of her commitments can be defended. Secondly, no justified position in RE was reached. With respect to RE as a method, the main results from this application are: (1) There is at least one conception of RE that is sufficiently specified to be applicable; (2) the RE criteria put real constraints on the process of justification; and (3) an explicit application of RE has benefits in terms of clarity while at the same time providing guidance for how the justificatory process could be continued.

KW - Methodology of ethics

KW - Philosophical methods

KW - Reconstruction

KW - Reflective equilibrium

KW - Trolley problem

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85132946498&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1007/s11229-022-03762-3

DO - 10.1007/s11229-022-03762-3

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85132946498

VL - 200

JO - Synthese

JF - Synthese

SN - 0039-7857

IS - 4

M1 - 272

ER -