The method of reflective equilibrium and the challenge from experimental philosophy

A common objection to the method of reflective equilibrium (MRE) targets the role it attributes to intuitions. That is, more specifically, that MRE treats intuitions as data. According to the objection, intuitions are not suited to serving as data and MRE is therefore flawed. Moreover, critics of MRE seem to think that the rise of experimental philosophy has bolstered this critique of MRE by providing evidence that suggests that intuitions should not be treated as data in moral inquiries. The challenge is often posed as a dilemma: (i) Either MRE is flawed due to it treating intuitions as data or (ii) MRE can be revised to accommodate the objection only to leave MRE vacuous. I refer to the challenge against MRE based on the findings of experimental philosophy studies as the challenge from experimental philosophy. In this paper, I assess whether critics succeed in pushing this objection in the form of a dilemma against MRE. To do this, I start by interpreting the claim that intuitions are not suited as data for moral theorizing. I take it that by saying that intuitions are treated as data, we mean that intuitions are used to test the external validity of our theories—i.e., whether they represent what we want them to represent. Furthermore, I argue that there are two ways of understanding the claim that intuitions are not suited for this purpose. According to the first reading, intuitions lack validity—i.e., they do not track what we want our moral theories to represent. According to the second reading, intuitions are unreliable—i.e., they track what we want our moral theories to represent, but they do so unreliably. On the first reading, it is quite obvious why intuitions should not be treated as data. However, on the second reading, some further assumptions need to be spelled out (e.g., assumptions about to what extent the intuitions are unreliable and the prospects of correcting and calibrating intuitions). Thus, I devote some space to elaborate on the second reading of the claim. I then outline three interpretations of MRE: A coherentist version, a foundationalist version, and a version, inspired by some of the writings of Micheal R. DePaul, according to which MRE is not interpreted as an account of the epistemic status of our moral beliefs, but a heuristic device for organizing them. I argue that neither reading of the challenge against treating intuitions as data threatens any of the versions of MRE. Moreover, I argue that this does not leave any of the version of MRE that I discuss vacuous. First, the objection that MRE is vacuous does not apply to the coherentist and foundationalist versions of MRE since they make distinct epistemic commitments. Second, the objection does not apply to the third version of MRE since the objection seems to presuppose that the third version of MRE is an account of the epistemic status of our moral beliefs.