Rawlsian Constructivism in Moral Theory

Abstract

Since his article, ‘Outline for a Decision Procedure in Ethics’, John Rawls has advocated a coherentist moral epistemology according to which moral and political theories are justified on the basis of their coherence with our other beliefs, both moral and nonmoral (1951: 56, 61).l A moral theory which is maximally coherent with our other beliefs is in a state which Rawls calls ‘reflective equilibrium’ (1971: 29). In A Theory of Justice Rawls advanced two principles of justice and claimed that they are in reflective equilibrium. He defended this claim by appeal to a hypothetical contract; he argued that parties in a position satisfying certain informational and motivational criteria, which he called ‘the original position’, would choose the following two principles of justice to govern the basic structure of their society.KeywordsTheory ChoiceMoral TheoryMoral BeliefMoral RealismMoral FactThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.