Dynamic Public Reflective Equilibrium

This chapter explains and defends ‘Dynamic Public Reflective Equilibrium’, an approach to political philosophy informed by in-depth interviews with members of the public that was used by the authors in their books Disadvantage and City of Equals. In the first case, they consulted ‘experts in disadvantage’—service providers and recipients—to develop a measure of disadvantage that refines the capability approach. In the second, they interviewed city dwellers in several countries to find out what people think makes their city more and less egalitarian. Within Dynamic Public Reflective Equilibrium, the primary role of the interview is to inspire philosophers to reflect and innovate by exposing them to questions, ideas, and arguments in social milieus quite different from those they typically occupy. On this view, although a theory that responds to the concerns of the public can help to inform public policy, it is chiefly driven by the search for (normative) truth.