Introduction

On the appropriative model, those who work in practical ethics exploit “fragments” of ethical theories, and so there is use-value for them in seeing moral theories developed and their implications drawn out, even if they do not ultimately embrace any specific theory in its entirety. On the model of wide reflective equilibrium, top-down reasoning constitutes half of what “doing” practical ethics requires. This leaves the bottom-up model, on which doing practical ethics involves starting with relatively concrete and specific ethical judgments and then moving toward greater abstraction and generality. The “narrow” version of reflective equilibrium is an example of this model. Work that draws out the concrete and specific implications of different familiar sets of ethical principles could help to guide someone who intends to move in the opposite direction, insofar as it shows which principles cohere with which particular judgments.