Kantian Constructive, Reflective Equilibrium and Reciprocity

8/11/2019 Kantian Constructive, Reflective Equilibrium and Reciprocity

1/33

Kantian Constructive, Reflective Equilibrium and Reciprocity

The purpose of this paper is two-fold: firstly I will seek to rehabilitate Kantian

constructivism as a meta-ethic and reflective equilibrium as a methodological tool; and will

then consider the global justice debate in light of a renewed emphasis on both the rationalist

and intuitionist aspects of this approach. Centrally, I will argue that Singers claims inEthics

and Intuitions,that evidence from cognitive neuroscience and evolutionary psychology

indicts the intuitionist approaches to ethics, are not borne out in light of further evidence; it is

a purely rationalist approach which is undermined by our emerging understanding of moral

decision-making.

After briefly laying out Singers argument, I will proceed to discuss evidence on

patients with damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPC patients) and psychopaths

in order to offer a tentative portrait of moral decision-making devoid of our prepotent

intuitions. I will argue that to adhere to rules or conventions, irrespective of the harm caused,

can be seen to be paradigmatic of the moral decision-making of impaired persons. I will also

suggest that if the rationalist manipulates their moral rules to cover intuitions which we do

not wish to give up, then they may be engaging in post hoc justification. The Argumentation

Theory of Mercier and Sperber will be discussed here to suggest the possibility that this

manipulation may represent the adaptive function for which controlled cognition evolved;

intuitions may come first in moral decision-making, with controlled cognition being

marshalled to provide justification. The final piece of evidence that will be offered against the

rationalist approach is the dual-process theory of Greene. This theory posits that controlled

cognition and prepotent intuitions fulfil a complimentary and competitive role in moral

decision-making. I will suggest that the burden of proof is on the rationalist to show that

controlled cognition does fulfil the function that they believe it does; in the absence of such


2/33

proof, we find that Kantian constructivism is vindicated as it treats both prepotent intuitions

and controlled cognition as sources of moral data in the process of reflective equilibrium. I

will conclude the meta-ethical and methodological half of this paper by arguing that the our

lack of understanding of the precise processes of moral decision-making and cognition should

provide us with a further reason for accepting Kantian constructivism and the fact of

reasonable pluralism; the findings of the cognitive sciences suggest to us a further source of

disagreement between reasonable persons.

The second half of this paper will focus on the issue of global justice by bringing to

bear the above considerations. I will argue that the principles selected behind the veil of

ignorance, those derived through controlled cognition, should be checked against our

prepotent intuitions, or considered judgements, in a process of reflective equilibrium; both

sources of data are equally valuable. I will suggest a principle of reciprocity, an aspect of

common morality which we find permeating a diverse array of subjects and issues, as a

considered judgement against which to test principles selected behind either a domestic or

global veil. I will argue that the principles offered by domestic justice as fairness, global

justice as fairness, and Reciprocity-Based Internationalism (RBI), all fail to achieve

equilibrium with a principle of reciprocity.

SingerEthics and Intuitions

Singer argues that Rawls fusing of intuitionism to an ethical methodology, the

attempt to achieve reflective equilibrium between our considered moral judgements and the

theories we construct, in which the theories or judgements are modified until equilibrium is

reached, is dubious.1He claims that,

1Peter Singer, Ethics and Intuitions,Journal of Ethics 9 (2005), pp. 331-352 (pp. 344-345).


3/33

In the case of a normative theory of ethics, Rawls assumes, the raw data is our prior

moral judgments. We try to match them with a plausible theory, but if we cannot, we

reject some of the judgments, and modify the theory so that it matches others.

Eventually the plausibility of the theory and of the surviving judgments reach an

equilibrium, and we then have the best possible theory. On this view the acceptability

of a moral theory is not determined by the internal coherence and plausibility of the

theory itself, but, to a significant extent, by its agreement with those of our prior

moral judgments that we are unwilling to revise or abandon.2

Singer criticises Rawls methodology for treating our moral intuitions as an

appropriate source of data, rejecting the search for a justice-guiding moral truth, and instead

utilising concepts and ideas that we already have, thereby resulting in cultural relativism

rather than the universalism which ethics usually seeks.3He states that, A normative ethical

theory, however, is not trying to explain our common moral intuitions. It might reject all of

them, and still be superior to other normative theories that better matched our moral

judgments.4

The concern for Singer is that attempting to achieve equilibrium with the existing

judgements that we are unwilling to revise treats these intuitions as action-guiding, when in

fact the evidence from the cognitive sciences shows that prepotent emotional intuitions are an

evolutionary adaptation and therefore an inappropriate source of data, at least on Singers

analysis. He concludes, that reflective equilibrium no longer appeals as a way of testing a

moral theory, [and] so Kantian constructivism ceases to be an attractive metaethic.5Rawls

methodology is, too respectful of our intuitions.6He believes that we are left with a choice

2Singer, Ethics and Intuitions, pp. 344-345.

3Singer, Ethics and Intuitions, p. 346.

4

Singer, Ethics and Intuitions, p. 345.5Singer, Ethics and Intuitions, p. 349.



4/33

between scepticism and attempting, the ambitious task of separating those moral judgments

that we owe to our evolutionary and cultural history, from those that have a rational basis.7

Whilst this argument appears to offer a decisive critique of Rawls methodology,and

has important implications for the rationalist and intuitionist approaches to ethics,8I believe

that it can be shown that much of its force derives from the view that rationality and cognitive

reasoning are either free from the evolutionary taint or are a more reliable guide to ethical

constructivism. Singer seems to treat the first option as likely refutable, since he

acknowledges that, In the light of the best scientific understanding of ethics...We can take

the view that our moral intuitions and judgments are and always will be emotionally based

intuitive responses, and reason can do no more than build the best possible case for a decision

already made on nonrational grounds.9The purpose of the next section will be to show that

Singers other suggestion, that we instil faith in controlled-cognition as the sole guide to

moral decision-making, may also be misguided.

VMPC Patients and Psychopathy

In 1848 Phineas P. Gage suffered an accident in which a tamping iron was hurled

through his face, skull and brain. Gage survived the incident and seemingly recovered well,

suffering no impairment of speech, movement or intelligence; he was able to learn new things

and his memory was unaffected. Nonetheless, his personality had undergone a significant

change; he no longer respected social conventions, used profanities excessively and failed to

honour his commitments. After his death, his physician hypothesised that perhaps there are

7

Singer, Ethics and Intuitions, p. 351.8



5/33

structures in the brain which constitute rational decision-making for personally and socially

suitable behaviour.10

Damasio et al have since reconstructed Gages brain in order to show that the likely

damage was, in the left hemisphere, to the anterior half of the orbital frontal cortex, the polar

and anterior mesial frontal cortices, and the anterior-most sector of the anterior cingulate

gyrus. In the right hemisphere the lesion affected the anterior and mesial orbital region, the

mesial and polar frontal cortices, and the anterior segment of the anterior cingulate gyrus.

They claim that Gage matches the neuroanatomical pattern that they have identified in other

patients with frontal damage. Their capacity to make rational decisions in personal and social

situations is impaired, as is their ability to process emotions. They do retain, however, the

capacity for logical problem-solving, abstract thought, and memory and other calculative

tasks. They go on to suggest, the hypothesis that emotion and its underlying neural

machinery participate in decision-making within the social domain and has raised the

possibility that the participation depends on the ventromedial frontal region, which is

connected to the, subcortical nuclei that control basic biological regulation, emotional

processing and social cognition andbehaviour.11In contrast, the dorsolateral region is

involved in the cognition of extrapersonal space, objects, language and arithmetic. These

processes remain unaffected in frontal-damage patients.12

Koenigs et al. have also examined whether emotional processes are necessary for

normal moral judgements. They have tested VMPC patients, as in Damasio et als study,

who exhibit decreased emotional responsivity, reduced social emotions, and who are more

prone to anger and frustration. These patients retain their capacity for general intelligence and

logical reasoning, and are aware of the appropriate social norms. They hypothesised that if

10Hanna Damasio, Thomas Grabowski, Randall Frank, Albert M. Galaburda, and Antonio R. Damasio, The

Return of Phineas Gage: Clues About the Brain from the Skull of a Famous Patient, Science 264 (1994), pp.

1102-1105 (p. 1102).11Damasio, Grabowski, Frank, Galaburda, and Damasio, The Return of Phineas Gage, p. 1104.

12Damasio, Grabowski, Frank, Galaburda, and Damasio, The Return of Phineas Gage, pp. 1104-1105.


6/33

the VMPC plays an integral role in moral judgements, those with damage to this area should

exhibit an abnormally high rate of utilitarian judgements in personal moral scenarios, i.e.

Thompsons large man dilemma,13but if the emotions do not play a causal role in

judgement generation, and are instead a product of judgements, then the VMPC patients

should respond normally.14Importantly, they found that,

In the absence of an emotional reaction to harm of others in personal moral dilemmas,

VMPC patients may rely on explicit norms endorsing the maximisation of aggregate

welfare and prohibiting the harming of others. This strategy would lead VMPC

patients to a normal pattern of judgements on low conflict personal dilemmas but an

abnormal pattern of judgements on high-conflict personal dilemmas, precisely as was

observed...VMPC seems to be critical only for moral dilemmas in which social

emotions play a pivotal role in resolving moral conflict.15

Finally, Blair has explored the functional contributions of the amygdala and VMPC to

care-based morality and posits that dysfunctions in these areas are co-existent with

psychopathy.16He argues that psycopathy is a developmental disorder which is characterised

by reduced guilt, empathy, and attachment to others, anti-social behaviour and poor

behavioural control, and states that psychopaths exhibit less of a convention-moral

distinction; moral rules are seen as akin to conventional rules. It is posited that in normal

persons, moral rules and conventions are distinguished between by the distress caused to

others; moral rules against transgressions which cause distress to others retain their force

whether or not there is a rule against them. In psychopaths this distinction is not maintained

13Judith Jarvis Thompson, The Trolley Problem, Yale Law Journal 94 (1985), pp. 1395-1415 (pp. 1409-1410).

14Michael Koenigs, Liane Young, Ralph Adolphs, Daniel Tranel, Fiery Cushman, Marc

Hauser, and Antonio Damasio, Damage to the Prefrontal Cortex Increases Utilitarian Moral

Judgements,Nature 446 (2007), pp. 908-911 (p. 908-910).15Koenigs, Young, Adolphs, Tranel, Cushman, Marc, and Damasio, Damage to the

Prefrontal Cortex Increases Utilitarian Moral Judgements, p. 910.16R. J. R. Blair, The Amygdala and Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex in Morality and Psychopathy, Trends inCognitive Sciences 11 (2007), pp. 387-392 (p. 391).


7/33

and it is argued that VMPC and amygdala impairments are responsible for this. 17It is claimed

that the amygdala is responsible for an individual learning the goodness and badness of

actions and objects, and that, the amygdalaprovides reinforcement expectancy information

to the OFC and vmPFC; the latter then represents this information.18He concludes that the

amygdala enables a social, care-based morality, which is then utilised by the VMPC to

inform moral decision-making.19

Importantly, Blair has also conducted an experiment in which children with

psychopathic tendencies were shown five images depicting distress cues, such as crying

children, and five threatening images, such as a sharks open mouth, and skin conductance

activity was measured. It was found that those with psychopathic tendencies responded

normally to threatening images but were hyporesponsive to distress cues, much as has been

shown in similar studies with adult psychopaths.20

This evidence, though brief and open to refutation, seems to suggest that normal

moral decision-making is impaired if it is a product of controlled cognition alone, or where

the convention/distress distinction is not maintained. Frontal-damage patients and

psychopaths are more likely to offer utilitarian judgements because they lack the care-based

or prepotent emotional responses to dilemmas. It appears that Psychopaths reason but dont

feel...They feel no compassion, guilt, shame, or even embarrassment, which makes it easy for

them to lie, and to hurt family, friends, and animals;21The argument here is that learning

the basics of care-based moralitylearning that some actions harm others and because of this

are to be avoidedrelies on this crucial role of the amygdala in stimulus-reinforcement

17Blair, The Amygdala and Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex in Morality and Psychopathy, pp. 387-388.

18Blair, The Amygdala and Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex in Morality and Psychopathy, p. 390.


20R. J. R. Blair, Responsiveness to Distress Cues in the Child with Psychopathic Tendencies,Personality and

Individual Differences 27 (1999), pp. 135-145.21Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion (London:

Penguin Books, 2013), p. 71.


8/33

learning.22It is precisely this process that the rationalist advocates; the rejection of moral

judgements based upon our evolutionary and cultural history in favour of those that can be

produced by reason alone.

An Objection

It would likely be objected that I have been uncharitable in my characterisation of

how rationalist ethical thought is to be understood. But, it seems difficult to conceive of the

fully rational individual, capable of constructing a moral conception, free of emotional

intuitions, which wouldnt in some way appear akin to these individuals. Take for example a

variant on the Drowning Child example.23Let us assume that a father has come across two

children drowning; one is his son and the other is an unknown child. He has time to only save

one. InPractical Ethics Singer seems to suggest that special obligations to children and close

family members can be explained as advantageous for all; it forms a component of a

recognised system of delegated responsibilities in which families and small communities

perform the tasks that could be enacted be a large bureaucracy. This explains a small amount

of preference for ones own.24

Which child should the father save? Let us take for now the intuition that many would

share that he should save his own child. It seems unlikely that a principle of devolved

responsibility does the work that Singer would require of it; the man is responsible for saving

either life. It may be suggested that as long as he saves one life he has discharged any duties

he may have. But this does not explain why many would believe that he should save his own

child. What if he chose to save the other child? Why would many likely find his behaviour

morally blame-worthy? Singer manages to not deal with this issue, instead stating,


23

Peter Singer, Famine, Affluence, and Morality,Philosophy and Public Affairs 1 (1972), pp. 229-243 (p.231).24

Peter Singer,Practical Ethics(Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1993), pp. 233-234.


9/33

We feel obligations of kinship more strongly than those of citizenship. Which parents

could give away their last bowl of rice if their own children were starving? To do so

would seem unnatural, contrary to our nature as biologically evolved beings -

although whether it would be wrong is another question altogether. In any case, we

are not faced with that situation, but with one in which our own children are well-fed,

wellclothed, well-educated, and would now like new bikes, a stereo set, or their own

car. In these circumstances any special obligations we might have to our children have

been fulfilled.25

But the Drowning Child is not a case in which the fathers own child is suitably

content, allowing him to turn his attention elsewhere. To address this issue adequately the

utilitarian would have to assert that the fathers child matters no more than the other child;

from the point of view of the universe, all that matters is saving one. This seems reminiscent

of VMPC patients and psychopaths; adhering to convention but without the appropriate

emotional responses. To try and extend the duty of devolved responsibility to this case, to say

that it is to everyones advantage if the father were to save his own child because its his

responsibility, seems to be an example of post hoc reasoning, utilising controlled cognition to

account for an intuition that we do not wish to discard. If the former, it does indeed provide a

hint of an ethical theory devoid of prepotent intuitions and resembling psychopaths and

VMPC patients. If the latter, it lends support to the idea that controlled cognition may not

fulfil the role that rationalists believe it does, and it is to this issue that this paper now turns.

Argumentation Theory

Singer claims, in reference to the rational intuition that five deaths are worse than one,

that, if this is an intuition, it is different from [prepotent] intuitions...It does not seem to be

25Singer,Practical Ethics, p. 233.


10/33

one that is the outcome of our evolutionary past.26Nonetheless, recent work on

Argumentation Theory, and other intuitionist models which are beyond the scope of this

paper,27may cast doubt on this understanding of the function of rational intuition and

reasoning. Whilst I will not lay out the theory in its entirety, there are a number of claims

which are relevant to this paper.

After acknowledging that philosophy has traditionally considered reasoning and

rationality to allow the human mind to go beyond perception, habit and instinct, Mercier and

Sperber proceed to argue that reasoning primarily evolved for, the production and evaluation

of arguments in communication.28Reasoning, on their view, has evolved because it makes

communication more reliable and advantageous. They offer evidence from a number of

studies that point to people failing at logical tasks, committing mistakes in probabilistic

reasoning, and being subject to irrational biases in decision making.29. They claim that people

typically perform badly in decontextualised reasoning experiments, but once these same

experiments are conducted in an argumentative context, performance improves.30

Importantly, people can be skilled arguers, producing and evaluating arguments felicitously.

This good performance stands in sharp contrast with the abysmal results found in other,

nonargumentative, settings.31People usually perform poorly in abstract reasoning tasks.

They argue that a separate study by Lord et al has shown that often participants already have

an opinion and that reasoning is an argumentative, rather than epistemic, process. Participants


27

28Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber, Why do Humans Reason? Arguments for an Argumentation Theory,

Behavioural and Brain Sciences 34 (2011), pp. 57-111 (p. 58).29

Mercier and Sperber, Why do Humans Reason?, p. 58.30Mercier and Sperber, Why do Humans Reason?, pp. 60-62.

31Mercier and Sperber, Why do Humans Reason?, p. 62.


11/33

do not seek the truth; they seek to construct an argument to defend their intuitions.32Mercier

and Sperber conclude that,

Reasoning contributes to the effectiveness and reliability of communication by

enabling communicators to argue for their claim and by enabling addressees to assess

these arguments. It thus increases both in quantity and in epistemic quality the

information humans are able to share. We view the evolution of reasoning as linked to

that of human communication. Reasoning...enables communicators to produce

arguments to convince addressees who would not accept what they say on trust; it

enables addressees to evaluate the soundness of these arguments and to accept

valuable information that they would be suspicious of otherwise.33

Argumentation Theory is by no means conclusive but it does offer us one way to

understand the second move I highlighted in the previous section; the function of reasoning

may be to justify intuitions and to aid in argument production and evaluation. These

comments accord well with Singers acknowledgement that reason may only support

decisions already made on nonrational grounds. Although these suggestions are obviously

tentative, it seems plausible to suggest that the rationalist, in the Drowning Child case, is left

with a choice: they can assert the primacy of their moral conventions over emotional

intuition, ignoring a care-based morality or distress/convention distinction, and thereby

resembling VMPC patients and psychopaths in their ethical behaviour; or they can adjust

their theory, extending it to cover intuitions that we do not wish to discard, and thereby

engaging in post hoc justification. As an alternative to these intuitive models, which accord

controlled-cognition a secondary role in moral decision-making, the final piece of evidence

32Charles G. Lord, Lee Ross, and Mark R. Lepper, Biased Assimilation and Attitude Polarization: The Effects

of Prior Theories on Subsequently Considered Evidence,Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 37(1979), pp. 2098-2109 (p. 2108).33

Mercier and Sperber, Why do Humans Reason?, pp. 71-72.


12/33

that this paper will consider against a purely rationalist approach is Greenes dual -process

theory.

The Dual-Process Theory of Moral Judgement

In response to theories which emphasise either the role of intuition in moral

judgement, such as Haidts Social-Intuitionist model or the Argumentation Theory detailed

above,34or the more traditional controlled-cognition models,35Greene et al have developed a

dual-process theory. The theory posits that both emotions and controlled-cognition play

crucial and occasionally competitive roles, arguing that utilitarian moral judgements arise

from the cognitive areas of the brain, whilst deontological judgements are associated with

intuitive emotional responses. To test this theory, Greene and his colleagues have devised a

number of thought experiments, two of which I include below, in which participants are

subjected to neuroimaging scans during deliberation:

Footbridge - A runaway trolley is heading down the tracks toward five workmen who

will be killed if the trolley proceeds on its present course. You are on a footbridge

over the tracks, in between the approaching trolley and the five workmen. Next to you

on this footbridge is a stranger who happens to be very large. The only way to save

the lives of the five workmen is to push this stranger off the bridge and onto the tracks

below where his large body will stop the trolley. The stranger will die if you do this,

but the five workmen will be saved. Is it appropriate for you to push the stranger on to

the tracks in order to save the five workmen?36

Crying Baby - Enemy soldiers have taken over your village. They have orders to kill

all remaining civilians. You and some of your townspeople have sought refuge in the

34Joshua D. Greene, The Cognitive Neuroscience of Moral Judgement, in Michael S. Gazzaniga (ed.) The

Cognitive Neurosciences (MIT Press: London, 2009), pp. 987-999 (p. 991).35Kohlberg, Turiel

36


13/33

cellar of a large house. Outside you hear the voices of soldiers who have come to

search the house for valuables. Your baby begins to cry loudly. You cover his mouth

to block the sound. If you remove your hand from his mouth his crying will summon

the attention of the soldiers who will kill you, your child, and the others hiding out in

the cellar. To save yourself and the others you must smother your child to death. Is it

appropriate for you to smother your child in order to save yourself and the other

townspeople?37

According to the theory, Footbridge elicits a conflict between utilitarian reasoning and

emotional intuition but, for the majority of participants, the latter response dominates. In

Crying Baby, however, people are slower in their responses and exhibit no significant

consensus in their responses. This is claimed to be a result of a serious conflict between

controlled cognition and emotional intuition. They predict that if the theory is correct, and

this case is one in which there is a genuine conflict between rival modules in the brain there

will be: increased activity in the anterior cingulated cortex (ACC), a region known for

activation during response conflict; and increased activity observed in the dorsolateral

prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), an area associated with cognitive control, if the controlled-

cognitive reasoning is able to override the prepotent emotional response to the dilemma. Both

predictions were proved accurate.38Other studies, both behavioural and utilising

neuroimaging, support the link between utilitarian judgements and controlled cognition. One

included cognitive load manipulation; utilitarian responses were slowed by an increased

cognitive load, whereas prepotent, deontological judgements were not.39Bartels found that

those who had low faith in intuition responded in a more utilitarian fashion.40Hardmans

37

38

Greene 99239

40


14/33

experiment, utilising Fredericks Cognitive Reflection Test,41found that those who did better

in the Test were about twice as likely to give utilitarian responses to the above dilemmas. 42

Importantly, Green claims that, Morality, broadly construed, may be viewed as a set

of psychological adaptations that allow individuals to reap the benefits of cooperation,43and

concludes that,

moral judgment emerges from a complex interaction among multiple neural systems

whose functions are typically not (and might not ever be) specific to moral

judgment...The bulk of the research...rightly emphasises the role of emotion, in all of

its functional and anatomical variety. At the same time, it is clear that controlled

cognitive processing plays an important role in moral judgment, particularly in

supporting judgments that run counter to prepotent emotional responses... Our current

neuroscientific understanding of moral judgment is rather crude.44

As Greene acknowledges, the suppositions of neuroimaging, and particularly a

neuroscientific explanation of moral judgements, are in their infancy. The dual-process

theory is speculative, but would nonetheless undermine the rationalist approach to ethics;

controlled-cognition seems to fulfil no more a specialised or epistemic function than

emotional intuition. The theory is also compatible with the findings noted above; those with

VMPC damage or impairment in the amygdala will offer more utilitarian judgements since

there will be less conflict with the controlled cognition components of the brain. It also seems

that the dual-process theory is likely to be compatible with argumentation theory: Greene

suggests that rationality is capable of overriding prepotent responses by supporting and

justifying counter-intuitions whilst in a similar way, Mercier and Sperber emphasise the post

hoc justificatory function of rationality. Importantly, both theories conceive of morality as a

41

42

43Greene 994

44Greene 995


15/33

social adaptation: the argumentation theory emphasises that rationality and rational intuition

contributes to the formulation and assessment of arguments produced socially; whilst the

dual-process theory posits moralitys function as an adaptation designed for social

cooperation.

Importance?

The evidence canvassed in the preceding sections is limited; it does not explain how

or why some people are more likely to reach utilitarian judgements. For example, is there

something that predisposes someone to utilising controlled cognition to overcome their

prepotent intuitions? The abnormalities in the VMPC and amygdala point some way towards

an answer but this does not admit of degrees; it is at least conceivable that there are different

thresholds at which controlled cognition becomes sufficiently weighted to overcome

prepotent intuitions. Consider again the Footbridge dilemma. If the experiment were

conducted with a number of variables, perhaps by granting some information about the

different victims which would be relevant to deciding how to proceed, it seems likely that

there would be different responses. Would controlled cognition be activated if the dilemma

were to push the large man to save one Nobel Peace Prize winner or scientist close to curing

AIDs or cancer?

The evidence therefore supports the claim that Advances in our understanding of

ethics do not themselves directly imply any normative conclusions, but they undermine some

conceptions of doing ethics which themselves have normative conclusions.45It is, however,

the purely rationalist approach to ethics which has been called into question here. To

maintain a rationalist approach requires that controlled cognition: be free of evolutionary

taint, which seems unlikely according to the dual-process theory; fulfils an epistemic

45Singer 349


16/33

function, which according to argumentation theory it may not; or should be able to fulfil its

reasoned construction of a moral theory without the input of prepotent intuitions, which the

evidence from VMPC patients and psychopaths suggests it does not.

Both prepotent intuitions and controlled cognition are therefore equally implicated by

the findings; we are left with acknowledging the mutually supportive role of these sources of

moral decision-making or accepting a measure of scepticism about the origins of all of our

moral beliefs.46Importantly, by undermining the purely rationalist approach to ethics,

Kantian constructivism emerges vindicated; it treats controlled cognition and prepotent

intuitions as complimentary, and equally valid, sources of data. It is commensurable with the

evidence from the cognitive sciences, and is, compatible with advocating our emotionally

based moral values and encouraging clear thinking about them,through the process of

reflective equilibrium. The next section will therefore evidence the compatibility of Kantian

constructivism and the evidence discussed above.

Kantian Constructivism and Reflective Equilibrium

Rawls states that, What distinguishes the Kantian form of constructivism is

essentially this: it specifies a particular conception of the person as an element in a reasonable

procedure of construction, the outcome of which determines the content of the first principles

of justice.47Centrally, Apart from the procedure of constructing the principles of justice,

there are no moral facts. Whether certain facts are to be recognized as reasons of right and

justice, or how much they are to count, can be ascertained only from within the constructive

procedure.48

Kantian constructivism is premised on three model-conceptions: the moral person; the

well-ordered society; and the mediating construct of the original position. The moral person

46

Singer 34947KC 516

48KC 519


17/33

is conceived of as: a free and equal rational being; viewing themselves and one another as

having an effective sense of justice and a conception of the good (to which they are not tied

and are capable of revising); possessing an equal right to determine and assess the principles

of justice; and entitled to make claims on the design of the basic structure to achieve their

own aims or further their higher-order interests. The well ordered society is conceived of as

one which: is regulated by a public conception of justice in which each knows that they and

all others accept the same principles of right and justice; has arranged its basic structure to

satisfy these principles; has established its principles of justice in accordance with the

reasonable beliefs established by the societys methods of inquiry.49The original position is a

construct to deprive participants of the capacity to select heteronomous principles. By

depriving parties of specific information behind the veil of ignorance, they are forced to

select principles of justice which express everyones moral status as free and equal rational

beings.50Within the original position, and behind the veil of ignorance, parties are denied

access to knowledge of: their place in society; their natural endowments; their conception of

the good; and their particular psychological disposition. They do not know the particular

circumstances of their own society, but they do know the general facts about human society;

As far as possible, then, the only particular facts which the parties know is that their society

is subject to the circumstances of justiceand whatever this implies.51

Reflective equilibrium is the process of attempting to achieve equilibrium between the

judgements arising from this initial bargaining situation, those that are a product of rational

thought, and those existing judgements which we take as provisional fixed points, such as

racial discrimination and religious intolerance being unjust. We revise either our existing

judgements, or the contractual circumstances, until we reach a reflective equilibrium between

the two so, thateventually we shall find a description of the initial situation that both

49

KC 520-52250TOJ 221-222

51118-119


18/33

expresses reasonable conditions and yields principles which match our considered judgments

duly pruned and adjusted.52

It is this process of matching a theory to our existing judgements which Singers

article attempts to dispute. Indeed, Singers centralclaim, is that, reflective

equilibrium...assumes that our moral intuitions are some kind of data from which we can

learn what we ought to do.53The veil of ignorance is designed so as to force rational

principles; the rationalist objects to these principles being checked against our existing

intuitions. If it were true that our prepotent emotional responses, such as refusing to kill the

baby in Crying Baby or refusing to push the large stranger in Footbridge, were the only

intuitions which were undermined by the cognitive sciences, then rationalists may well be

right to assert that the normative significance of this evidence is to undermine Kantian

constructivism and reflective equilibrium.

Nonetheless, as I have argued above, it is both reasoned principles, derived from the

original position, and prepotent intuitions, which we are unwilling to revise, which are called

into question by the evidence of the cognitive sciences. Since neither has been shown to

enjoy a privileged status in moral decision-making, Kantian constructivism is rehabilitated.

Importantly, this is not the only normative significance of these findings; they can also be

accommodated within Kantian constructivism, rather just vindicating it as a metaethic. I

therefore turn now to the circumstances of justice and the burdens of judgement to argue that

the evidence from the cognitive sciences has an important role to play as a source of

reasonable disagreement.

The Circumstances of Justice and the Burdens of Judgement

5217-18

53Singer 345-346


19/33

As noted above, Rawls emphasises that the only information available to the parties

within the original position is that their society is subject to the circumstances of justice,

which he describes inA Theory of Justiceas,

the normal conditions under which human cooperation is both possible and

necessary...although a society is a cooperative venture for mutual advantage, it is

typically marked by a conflict as well as an identity of interests...individuals are

roughly similar in physical and mental powers...Finally, there is the condition of

moderate scarcity understood to cover a wide range of situations...I also suppose that

men suffer from various shortcomings of knowledge, thought, and judgment. Their

knowledge is necessarily incomplete, their powers of reasoning, memory, and

attention are always limited, and their judgment is likely to be distorted by anxiety,

bias, and a preoccupation with their own affairs. Some of these defects spring from

moral faults, from selfishness and negligence; but to a large degree, they are simply

part of mensnatural situation.54

In his later work Rawls develops this idea of reasonable disagreement (italicised), into

an explanation of the potential sources of conflict which arise among reasonable persons.

Centrally, he claims that although it may be possible to overcome moderate scarcity, and thus

reduce this source of competition, there will nonetheless remain deep differences in religious,

philosophical and ethical perspectives.55These differences arise as a product of free and

equal, reasonable and rational, persons exercising the same powers of thought and judgement.

The burdens of judgement are the sources, or causes, of reasonable disagreement and are

comprised of, but not exhausted by: the evidence, both empirical and scientific can be

54TOJ 109-110

55KC 539


20/33


21/33

Our ignorance of the precise processes of moral decision-making, cognition and

intuition, and how these conflict and are resolved in the individual mind, suggests that

persons will arrive at different ethical conclusions.

This is an acknowledgement that, Our individual and associative points of view,

intellectual affinities and affective attachments, are too diverse...Many conceptions of the

world can plausibly be constructed from different standpoints...[and] arises from our limited

powers and distinct perspectives; it is unrealistic to suppose that all our differences are rooted

solely in ignorance and perversity.59This additional burden of judgement provides a further

reason for us to support the fact of reasonable pluralism and to eschew the oppressive use of

state power to enforce monist theories.

Scientific Evidence and Kantian Constructivism

It has been my purpose in this part of the paper to offer an argument against

constructing an ethical theory solely in accordance with rational intuition, thereby vindicating

Kantian constructivism and evidencing its compatibility with the findings of the cognitive

sciences. I have briefly noted some evidence on patients with impaired VMPC or amygdala

function, and psychopaths. I have suggested that these people can be seen to portray, albeit

loosely, the ideal rational individual, reasoning free from their prepotent intuitions. Having

considered that I may be unfairly misrepresenting the rationalist ideal, I have suggested that

maintaining adherence to moral rules, without drawing a moral/convention distinction or

having concern for the distress caused, is seemingly paradigmatic of the adherence to

convention exhibited by impaired individuals. To attempt to alter a rationalist theory to avoid

59542


22/33

this conclusion evidences an example of post hoc reasoning to justify a prepotent intuition.

Argumentation Theory, as an example of an intuitionist model, has then been briefly

discussed to show that the move to extend the theory to cover an intuition that we do not want

to give up may actually represent the function for which rationality adapted; it may be an

adaptation to increase humanitys capacity to offerand analyse arguments socially, and

thereby offer justifications for our intuitions. I have suggested that these findings, along with

Greenes dual-process theory, which posits a mutually supportive role for prepotent intuitions

and controlled cognition, should impel us away from a purely rationalist approach, but not

Kantian constructivism, once we acknowledge that neither controlled cognition nor prepotent

intuitions are superior in providing a foundation for an ethical theory. I have finally suggested

that this vindicates reflective equilibrium; the principles that arise from controlled cognition,

those selected behind the veil of ignorance, and prepotent responses, the intuitions against

which we check these principles, are equally valid sources of data. As a final suggestion, I

have claimed that this evidence also has a role to play as a further source of reasonable

disagreement, and provides us with an additional reason for accepting the fact of reasonable

pluralism and the attempt to construct an overlapping consensus.

This completes my methodological claim; the advances in the cognitive sciences do

have significant normative implications, and at two levels. They vindicate Kantian

constructivism as a metaethic and they are included within the metaethic as a source of

reasonable disagreement. It would appear that the burden of proof is on the rationalist to

show that controlled cognition does fulfil the role that they believe it does, that it is free from

evolutionary taint and that their theory can be constructed without the input of considered

judgements or prepotent intuitions. The rest of this paper will explore an implication of these

claims by considering the principle of reciprocity as a provisional fixed point in Kantian


23/33

constructivism, an intuition we may not wish to revise, and applying it to the global justice

debate.

Rehabilitating Reciprocity

We find reciprocity across a wide range of discipline, including: law;60social

psychology;61interpersonal relationships;62economic and game theory;63anthropology and

theoretical biology;64biology;65evolutionary theory;66and in political theory.67Whilst I will

not consider the precise role that reciprocity plays in each of these areas, I have highlighted

them here to suggest the frequency at which reciprocity appears across a range of diverse

issues; reciprocity will be argued to be a prevalent and recurring feature of our social life and

should be conceived of as a considered judgement that we may not wish to revise.

Returning to Singers anti-intuitionist argument, he suggests that reciprocity can be

seen to underpin the origins of morality. He provides a stylised example in which non-

humans, particularly monkeys, also engage in reciprocal behaviour, such as picking parasites

from one another. A monkey that fails to return the favour may be attacked or excluded from

the practice in the future. Cognition is necessary to recognise and remember co-operators and

defectors and is only possibly in relatively small, stable groups. Therefore a basic form of

reciprocal altruism, and punishment and desert, arise naturally, possibly providing the origins

of a morality which extends these concepts into those of good and bad.68Whether this

account is true or false is debateable;69it nonetheless provides an explanation for why we

60

61John Jung, The Role of Reciprocity in Social Psychology

62The Role of Reciprocity in Romantic Relationships in Middle Childhood and Early Adolescence;Perceived

Similarity among Adolescent Friends: The Role of Reciprocity, Friendship Quality, and Gender;63

Understanding Reciprocity Sethi;64

65

66

67

Sangiovanni, Becker68Singer 335-337

69Strong/weak/group selection
http://lse.summon.serialssolutions.com/link/0/eLvHCXMwRV27CsJAEDxEwcIqoNf6AwnZ28s96mAUFJGgGOw29ygF0f_HS1Sslqm22GV2phiWsbUyHkIZtVWE2iBg77VzPZF0BJaGcPPtKrf7qm7xsPiTWZOxSbgv2aXZnOtd_n0GkLvhSufobW_B6ADKoauUD1GgDCoZCh-TSABCh55ir02oUJWkIQYRlTOapIgeVmyaDHXgbBbTYFNNZMtTc87mnRXtsbOnD8x-sHiOwafi8eKJ28e9yKGo3q8CNqkhttp://lse.summon.serialssolutions.com/link/0/eLvHCXMwRV27CsJAEDxEwcIqoNf6AwnZ28s96mAUFJGgGOw29ygF0f_HS1Sslqm22GV2phiWsbUyHkIZtVWE2iBg77VzPZF0BJaGcPPtKrf7qm7xsPiTWZOxSbgv2aXZnOtd_n0GkLvhSufobW_B6ADKoauUD1GgDCoZCh-TSABCh55ir02oUJWkIQYRlTOapIgeVmyaDHXgbBbTYFNNZMtTc87mnRXtsbOnD8x-sHiOwafi8eKJ28e9yKGo3q8CNqk


24/33

may intuitively believe that reciprocity matters. Those who provide us with something are

owed something in return. Non-reciprocators are not. Whilst he advocates an evolutionary

approach to ethics, that is using scientific theories to understand the origins of morality,

Singer does not believe in an evolutionary ethic; duties to kin and duties of reciprocity can be

partly explained by evolutionary theory but this does not provide a normative justification for

these elements of common morality.70But, as I have argued above, the origins of reciprocity

do not undermine its potential value as a source of data in an ethical theory.

Let us return to the Drowning Child example. If we do intuitively believe that the

father should save his own child, a possible explanation may be that we think he has an

obligation to ensure the childs well-being, having brought him into the world. Alternatively,

we might take a more evolutionary perspective, such as Dawkins, and suggest that the

fathers behaviour is conditioned by natural selectionand the selfish gene; he is acting to

ensure the continuation of his genetic material.71Both of these provide a more appealing

explanation for why the father should save his son than believing he is fulfilling a devolved

global duty. Both are premised on reciprocity; the father is implicated in an important

relationship with his son, or he maypossess an altruistic allele, being able to discriminate

between those who share this allele with him and those who dont, leading to kin

favouritism.72

If we do believe the father is entitled to save his son, failing at moral impartiality and

yet remaining morally blameless, this may be because we construe this as an example of an

agent-centred prerogative, whether freely chosen or biologically determined.73As Scheffler

persuasively argues against consequentialist theories, each person has, a prerogative to

70Singer, Ethics and Intuitions,Journal of Ethics 9 (2005), pp. 331-352 (p. 343).

7172

Robert L. Trivers, The Evolution of Reciprocal Altruism, Quarterly Review of Biology 46 (1971), pp. 35-57

(pp. 36-37).73

The Rejection of Consequentialism: A Philosophical Investigationof the Considerations Underlying Rival Moral Conceptions chapter The Defence of AgentCentred Restrictions:Intuitions in Search of a Foundation


25/33

devote attention to one's projects out of proportion to the weight in the impersonal calculus of

one's doing so.74Here we find that even strict egalitarians, such as G.A. Cohen, are prepared

to permit a modest amount of personal preference, suggesting that, every person has a right

to pursue self-interest to some reasonable extent.75Estlund offers an additional example,

Suppose I negligently drive over my wealthy neighbours prize garden. I could work extra

hours at my job producing, say, free educational software, but my neighbour is entitled to

have me spend some of my available time fixing his garden instead, and I would be wrong to

refuse.76We therefore have two ways in which reciprocal relationships can supersede the

dictates of moral impartiality:

1. The motive of affectionActing to the benefit of significant others without concern

for moral impartiality (The father in the Drowning Child case).

2. Inequality producing moral requirementsA moral demand may conflict with a prior

obligation that has been generated by the agents actions (The Negligent Driver).77

Both of these prerogatives can be construed as normatively significant reciprocal

considerations. The motive of affection acknowledges that we have obligations to certain

significant others by virtue of the relationship we enjoy with them, whether chosen or not.

The second prerogative points to how a reciprocal obligation can arise in addition to whatever

obligations we may have to others pursuant to an ethical theory or theory of justice.

We find a similar approach in Sangiovannis Reciprcoity-Based Internationalism

(RBI); all people are accorded the same moral status but the institutionally mediated relations

in which persons are implicated, are normatively significant for assessing distributive justice.

Sangiovanni claims that, equality is a demand of justice only among citizens (and, indeed,

74Samuel Scheffler, The Rejection of Consequentialism: A Philosophical Investigation of the Considerations

Underlying Rival Moral Conceptions(Oxford University Press: Oxford, 1994), p. 41.75

Incentives, Inequality, and Community

G. A . COHEN30276Estlund 102

77Estlund Liberalism, Equality 101-103


26/33

residents) of a state.78Persons who are citizens of a state enter into reciprocal relationships

via the mutual provision of social and legal goods necessary for each to pursue their own

conception of the good.79He notes that coercion, taxation, private law, and political activity

contribute to the maintenance of a system which secures the basic structure and conditions

required for each individual to develop and pursue a conception of the good. In a direct

parallel of the Negligent Driver, the actions that persons engage in, obeying laws, paying

taxes and maintaining the basic structure of their society, enter them into reciprocal

relationships. Sangiovanni contends that non-citizens do not participate in this shared project

and are excluded from egalitarian principles of justice.80

The important point for the purposes of this paper is that members of a community, of

whatever size, interact in webs of indirect reciprocity and thereby owe one another more than

to those who do not participate in these networks of relations. This is not to imply that others

are not of concern, but, as with the Negligent Driver or the Drowning Child, there are

considerations of reciprocity which are normatively significant. Even if we assume a baseline

of equal moral status for all persons across the globe, we can nonetheless derive more

stringent obligations for those who engage in the mutual provision of collective goods. It is

also possible to argue that as the nature of collective goods changes, so do the reciprocal

relationships; participation in a states maintenance and reproduction provides a different

kind of collective good to those provided by mutual compliance with transnational bodies or

international laws. Sangiovanni, however, does not opt for this expansion of his thesis,

contending that the institutionally mediated relationships which matter currently do not

78Sangiovanni, Global Justice, Reciprocity, and the State, pp. 3-4.

79Sangiovanni, Global Justice, Reciprocity, and the State, p. 4.

80Sangiovanni, Global Justice, Reciprocity, and the State, pp. 19-21.


27/33

extend outwards to supra- and transnational bodies, since they rely on states to fulfil an

intermediary role.81

Beitz and Pogge do not utilise an institutionalist approach, instead emphasising global

interdependence and the absence of institutions. Pogge moves to a global original position

following Rawls own arguments: against arbitrary inequalities from birth, in this case

nationality; that individuals are the units of concern, rather than states; and that there is a

level of global interconnectedness that affects persons life chances.82He goes on to suggest

a global original position, with the world taken to encompass the reciprocal relationships;

implication in global institutions, trade, and politics generates obligations between persons.

Beitz similarly argues that,

If the societies of the world are now to be conceived as open, fully interdependent

systems, the world as a whole would fit the description of a scheme of social

cooperation and the arguments for the two principles would apply, a fortiori, at the

global level. The principles of justice for international politics would be the two

principles for domestic society writ large, and their application would have a very

radical result, given the tendency to equality of the difference principle.83

It is therefore ties of reciprocity, or interdependence, viewed from a global vantage

point, which justifies the move to a global original position. Beitz goes on to state that, if

evidence of global economic and political interdependence shows the existence of a global

scheme of social cooperation, we should not view national boundaries as having fundamental

moral significance...The veil of ignorance must extend to all matters of national

citizenship.84

8120-22

82

Pogge 237-24183Beitz 363

84376


28/33

On Sangiovanni, Pogge and Betizs views it is therefore the relations of reciprocity

which justify each of their central arguments, although in different ways. Sangiovanni

restricts principles of egalitarian justice to those whose reciprocal relationships are mediated

institutionally whilst Pogge and Beitz suggest that the reciprocal relationships that are extant

justify the creation of institutions to mediate the obligations that persons have. We therefore

see a range of reciprocal relationships, at a local level as in the Drowning Child and

Negligent Driver cases, at a community level in Sangivannis relationalist account, and at a

global level in the interconnectedness thesis. The final purpose of this paper is to test the idea

of reciprocity, which seemingly underlies each of these accounts, against the principles

derived behind the veil; I will suggest that RBI and domestic and global justice as fairness do

not achieve equilibrium with the principle of reciprocity.

Global Justice and Reciprocity

In order to test the principles derived behind the veil it will be useful to formulate a

principle of reciprocity that encompasses the key ideas that emerge from Rawls project,the

comments on agent-centred prerogatives noted above, RBI, and the interconnectedness thesis

that underlies Beitz and Pogges global original position. From these, we have three key

aspects of reciprocity:

1. Persons who engage in reciprocal behaviour generate normatively significant

relationships; people are owed a fair return for their cooperation.

2. Persons are implicated in reciprocal relationships that arise through unchosen means

and through self-willed actions.

3.

Reciprocity is a scaled concept; we are implicated in different reciprocal obligations

with family, friends, voluntary associations and larger communities.


29/33

Interestingly, we find similar suggestions in Henry Sidgwicksanalysis of common

sense morality, where: Good done to any individual oughtto be requited by him,...Good

deeds ought to be requited,...[and], Men ought to be rewarded in proportion to their

deserts.85

For expositional purposes, we can therefore collate the preceding considerations and

suggest:

The Principle of Reciprocity: Our own actions can give rise to obligations which it is

right to fulfil. What will be owed, and to whom, will depend on the extent and scope

of the relationship of reciprocity.

This principle is deliberately loose in formulation, and should encompass many of the

obligations that we believe we should fulfil, from the father saving his drowning child to

obligations owed to those who participate in the global marketplace and maintenance of

trans- and supra-national bodies, and ties in with common sense morality.

Let us further assume that whether we proceed to a domestic or global original

position, the parties, as individuals and not as representatives of states as in theLaw of

Peoples,86would follow Rawls strategy of maximin.87(For simplicity I leave aside the

further issue of whether or not parties might rationally adopt another strategy such as

Harsanyis principle of average utility).88Parties therefore, rank alternatives by their worst

possible outcomes: we are to adopt the alternative the worst outcome of which is superior to

the worst outcomes of the others.89

Starting with the domestic original position, we can suppose that the parties behind

the veil have chosen the two principles of justice, and the priority rules, to govern their

85Henry Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics (MacMillan and Co: London, 1877), pp. 250-251.

86Law of Peoples

87

88

John Harsanyi, Can the MaximinPrinciple Serve as the Basis for Morality? A Critique of JohnRawls's Theory,American Political Science Review, 69 (1975), pp. 594606 (p. 598).89

TOJ 133


30/33

interactions.90We then proceed to check domestic justice as fairness against the Principle of

Reciprocity. We immediately realise that they do not adequately account for our considered

judgement that we may owe obligations to persons outside of our society; we know that our

interactions with non-nationals implicate us in a reciprocal relationship for which they are

owed consideration.91The closed system assumption is too limiting in our attempt to derive

principles behind the veil, and should be revised.

RBI, although not utilising Kantian constructivism, would nonetheless fail to reach

equilibrium with the Principle; we may have obligations outside of our nation-state, whether

theyre mediated by intuitional structures or not. To assert that, While it is true that the

global order and, more plausibly, less extensive regional orders such as the European Union

could acquire autonomous distributive, extractive, and regulative capacities, RBI says that,

until they do so, equality as a demand of justice does not apply to them,92runs counter to our

considered judgement. Significant obligations can arise without institutional structures. For

example, Child persuasively argues that, willing compliance with rules that are there to

guarantee the stability and continuity of the conditions necessary for wealth creation is

sufficient to qualify individuals for inclusion in a scheme of reciprocal justice with the well-

off.93Even though these relationships are not institutionally mediated, compliance with

immigration laws is necessary to guarantee stability and wealth creation; willing compliance

with these laws qualifies outsiders as parties to a reciprocal relationship.94

If we approach the issue from a global original position we find that Beitz and

Pogges accounts are too focused on the principles derived behind the veil. Assuming that we

do arrive at the two principles again, we have the converse problem to that of Sangiovanni.

We require global redistribution, all policies are to be viewed in the light of the global worst

90PL 5-7

91Beitz and Pogge

92

Sangiovanni 20-2293Child, Global Migratory Potential and the Scope of Justice, p. 292.94

Child, Global Migratory Potential and the Scope of Justice, p. 292.


31/33

off and the global basic structure should be designed, implemented and geared towards

improving the position of the least advantaged. But, this ignores that the reciprocal

relationships that bind people at this level are very different to those at a more local level.

Sangiovannis thesis shows us why we need to differentiate between the extent of reciprocal

relationships and the obligations that they generate:

Take, for example, an Italian textile worker. Whether she loses or keeps her job may

depend more on decisions affecting labor costs taken by the Slovenian government

and Slovenian textile manufacturers than it does on the Italian state...Consider,

furthermore, which set of institutions is able to maintain her capabilities...it would be

the Italian state that would provide or guarantee some form of unemployment

compensation, retraining, housing, and so on.95

These comments are tentative but do suggest that the global justice debate might

benefit from a concerted effort to utilise reflective equilibrium rather than the veil of

ignorance alone. At the domestic level we find theories which are too conservative in their

scope; they exclude persons that we may intuitively believe are owed consideration. At the

global level, we find that our principles may be too demanding and ignore that we do have

stronger reciprocal ties to those who provide us with more, or a different class of, goods.

The Importance of our Considered Judgements

This argument is not an attempt to deny that we have obligations to all persons as free

and equal moral persons; from a global original position we can derive principles which

would be acceptable to all and would likely contain a significant element of global

redistribution. But, we can suppose that when we test these principles against the considered

95Sangiovanni 34-35


32/33

judgement that we are implicated in reciprocal relationships, which cannot be accounted for

behind the veil of ignorance, then our initial contracting situation may require revision.

Kantian constructivism as a meta-ethic is not designed to merely produce abstract principles

which are relevant for all peoples at all times; reflective equilibrium ensures that a conception

of justices, justification is a matter of the mutual support of many considerations, of

everything fitting together into one coherent view.96Our considered judgements matter. I

have suggested that a principle of reciprocity is one such intuition, which should be imposed

on the contractual situation,97and should be tested against the principles we derive through

the enforced controlled cognition of the original position.

For reflective equilibrium to be indicted as a methodological tool it needs to be shown

that controlled cognition is free from whatever taint our considered judgements are possessed

of, and is capable of truly constructing a moral theory without the input of considered

judgements. For reciprocity to be discarded as a considered judgement, it would need to be

shown that people do not believe that their activities generate normatively relevant

relationships which produce obligations that they should fulfil. The burden of proof would

appear to be on the rationalist to evidence this, and the findings of the cognitive sciences and

evolutionary psychology, to date, are not sufficient for this purpose. Until further evidence is

forthcoming, it seems pertinent to reaffirm that, What justifies a conception of justice is not

its being true to an order antecedent to and given to us, but its congruence with our deeper

understanding of ourselves and our aspirations, and our realization that, given our history and

the traditions embedded in our public life, it is the most reasonable doctrine for us. We can

find no better basic charter for our social world.98We are reciprocators; to discard this aspect

of our ethical life may be asking us to fundamentally change who we are.

96

TOJ 1997TOJ 18

98KC519


33/33

Documents

Kantian Constructive, Reflective Equilibrium and Reciprocity