Uma abordagem intucionista do equilíbrio reflexivo

Abstract

How we should conduct our moral inquiry to discover what to believe about moral questions? How the plausibility of judgments, theories and moral principles should be evaluated? How we should try to remove our doubts when we are uncertain about what is right or wrong, good or bad, just or injust? This is a study about the reflective equilibrium, a method that offers a model for the moral inquiry which answers these questions. Since it became popular in moral philosophy following its use and defense by John Rawls in A Theory of Justice (1971), the reflective equilibrium has been interpreted as a coherentist model for the moral inquiry and justification. According to this interpretation, the proper moral inquiry it is a process in which one tries to maximize coherence and minimize incoherence between his moral beliefs, moral principles and relevant nonmoral beliefs, a process that it is valuable by ensuring that the person who follows it ends up accepting moral beliefs which are epistemically justified by these coherence relations. This study intends to argue against this view developing in its place an intuitionist model for the reflection equilibrium. According to this model, the proper moral inquiry it is a process in which one tries to discover what its supported by his moral intuitions, or what is plausible from the point of view of those moral propositions that intuitively appears to be true, a process that it is valuable because it makes the person following it able to hold its moral beliefs based on the reasons that she has to believe them, which is a necessary part of the epistemically justified moral belief. The study argues in favor of this view by showing how the reflective equilibrium, when interpreted as a intuionist method, can be seen as the method used in the moral inquiry of competent moral philosophers, such as John Rawls, Philippa Foot, Judith Jarvis Thomson, Peter Singer and others. The study defends the thesis that only an intuitionist approach can deal with the main objections to the reflective equilibrium presented by its critics.