An Analysis of Rawls’ Reflective Equilibrium as a Method of Justification in Ethics

Abstract

It is undeniable that people have beliefs about what actions are morally right. These beliefs play an important role in guiding moral action. Can beliefs about what actions are morally right be justified? How can they be justified? Sinnott-Armstrong has advanced an epistemic regress ar-gument against the justification of moral beliefs with the consequence that moral beliefs cannot be justified. This research looks at the subject of the justification of moral beliefs with the view of answering the question about how moral beliefs can be justified in response to Sinnott-Armstrong‘s epis-temic regress argument. It argues for the plausibility of Rawls‘ reflective equilibrium as an ade-quate method of justification of moral beliefs while showing the inadequacies of the intuitionist method and naturalistic epistemology as alternative methods of justification of moral beliefs. The arguments and ideas of philosophers such as W. D Ross, Richard Boyd, John Rawls, Robert Audi and others who have reflected on the subject of the justification of moral beliefs will be ex-tensively and critically examined.