The Thinker and the Thinking Process: A Feminist Perspective on the Moral Faculty

Abstract

In his book Balance and Refinement, Michael DePaul argues that ‘reflective equilibrium seems to represent the attitude that since the experience of any ordinary adult will do for moral inquiry, there is no need to describe in any detail the role of experience in moral inquiry’ (DePaul 1993, 139). Reflective equilibrium leaves, so to say, the thinker out of the thinking process: any adult will do. But is this so? DePaul answers the latter question with a definite ‘No’. In the moral reasoning process the character and experiences of the person should not be neglected.