Key Arguments

• Ricoeur writes that argumentation must not be 'simply posited as the antagonist of tradition and convention, but as the critical agency operating at the heart of convictions, argumentation assuming the task not of elimi nating but of carrying them to the level of "considered convictions," in what Rawls calls a reflective equilibrium.'
• This reflective equilibrium is said to be 'between the requirement of uni versality and the recognition of the contextual limitations affecting it', and is 'the final issue in the judgment in situation within the framework of the conflicts mentioned above.'
• He explains why conviction is inescapable: it 'expresses the positions from which result the meanings, interpretations, and evaluations relating to the multiple goods that occupy the scale of praxis, from practices and their immanent goods, passing by way of life plans, life histories, and including the conceptions humans have, alone or together, of what a complete life would be.'
• Even at the level of political practice, he insists that what is under discussion is 'the best way for each party in the great debate to aim, beyond institutional mediations, at a complete life with and for others in just institutions,' thereby connecting convictions to his earlier teleological formula.
• He concludes that 'The articulations that we never cease to reinforce be tween deontology and teleology finds its highest—and most fragile— expression in the reflective equilibrium between the ethics of argumentation and considered convictions', underscoring the centrality and fragility of this mediation.

Source Quotes

But this corrective action of the ethics of argumentation presupposes that the discussion is about some thing, about the "things of life."81 And why must argumentation accept the mediation of other language games and assume a corrective role with respect to their potential for ar gumentation? Precisely because argumentation is not simply posited as the antagonist of tradition and convention, but as the critical agency operating at the heart of convictions, argumentation assuming the task not of elimi nating but of carrying them to the level of "considered convictions," in what Rawls calls a reflective equilibrium. It is just such a reflective equilibrium between the requirement of uni versality and the recognition of the contextual limitations affecting it that is the final issue in the judgment in situation within the framework of the conflicts mentioned above.

Precisely because argumentation is not simply posited as the antagonist of tradition and convention, but as the critical agency operating at the heart of convictions, argumentation assuming the task not of elimi nating but of carrying them to the level of "considered convictions," in what Rawls calls a reflective equilibrium. It is just such a reflective equilibrium between the requirement of uni versality and the recognition of the contextual limitations affecting it that is the final issue in the judgment in situation within the framework of the conflicts mentioned above. What makes conviction an inescapable party here is the fact that it ex presses the positions from which result the meanings, interpretations, and evaluations relating to the multiple goods that occupy the scale of praxis, from practices and their immanent goods, passing by way of life plans, life histories, and including the conceptions humans have, alone or together, of what a complete life would be.

It is just such a reflective equilibrium between the requirement of uni versality and the recognition of the contextual limitations affecting it that is the final issue in the judgment in situation within the framework of the conflicts mentioned above. What makes conviction an inescapable party here is the fact that it ex presses the positions from which result the meanings, interpretations, and evaluations relating to the multiple goods that occupy the scale of praxis, from practices and their immanent goods, passing by way of life plans, life histories, and including the conceptions humans have, alone or together, of what a complete life would be. For, finally, what do we discuss, even on the level of political practice, where the goods concerned transcend the goods immanent in various practices—for example, in the debate over the ends of good government or the legitimacy of democracy—yes, what do we discuss, if not the best way for each party in the great debate to aim, beyond institutional mediations, at a complete life with and for others in just institutions?

What makes conviction an inescapable party here is the fact that it ex presses the positions from which result the meanings, interpretations, and evaluations relating to the multiple goods that occupy the scale of praxis, from practices and their immanent goods, passing by way of life plans, life histories, and including the conceptions humans have, alone or together, of what a complete life would be. For, finally, what do we discuss, even on the level of political practice, where the goods concerned transcend the goods immanent in various practices—for example, in the debate over the ends of good government or the legitimacy of democracy—yes, what do we discuss, if not the best way for each party in the great debate to aim, beyond institutional mediations, at a complete life with and for others in just institutions? The articulations that we never cease to reinforce be tween deontology and teleology finds its highest—and most fragile— expression in the reflective equilibrium between the ethics of argumentation and considered convictions*2 An example of this subtle dialectic is provided by the current discussion of human rights.

For, finally, what do we discuss, even on the level of political practice, where the goods concerned transcend the goods immanent in various practices—for example, in the debate over the ends of good government or the legitimacy of democracy—yes, what do we discuss, if not the best way for each party in the great debate to aim, beyond institutional mediations, at a complete life with and for others in just institutions? The articulations that we never cease to reinforce be tween deontology and teleology finds its highest—and most fragile— expression in the reflective equilibrium between the ethics of argumentation and considered convictions*2 An example of this subtle dialectic is provided by the current discussion of human rights. Basically, these rights, taken on the level of declarative and not properly legislative texts, can be held to be well-argued derivatives of the very ethics of argumentation.

Key Concepts

• argumentation is not simply posited as the antagonist of tradition and convention, but as the critical agency operating at the heart of convictions, argumentation assuming the task not of elimi nating but of carrying them to the level of "considered convictions," in what Rawls calls a reflective equilibrium.
• It is just such a reflective equilibrium between the requirement of uni versality and the recognition of the contextual limitations affecting it that is the final issue in the judgment in situation within the framework of the conflicts mentioned above.
• What makes conviction an inescapable party here is the fact that it ex presses the positions from which result the meanings, interpretations, and evaluations relating to the multiple goods that occupy the scale of praxis
• what do we discuss, if not the best way for each party in the great debate to aim, beyond institutional mediations, at a complete life with and for others in just institutions?
• The articulations that we never cease to reinforce be tween deontology and teleology finds its highest—and most fragile— expression in the reflective equilibrium between the ethics of argumentation and considered convictions

Context

Ricoeur deepens his reinterpretation of discourse ethics through Rawls’s notion of reflective equilibrium, recasting argumentation as an internal critic of convictions that seeks a balance between universal norms and historically situated visions of the good life.