Pragmatism

Pragmatic Ethics by Hugh LaFollette  

READ: http://www.stpt.usf.edu/hhl/papers/pragmati.htm

For pragmatists the matter of ethics is approached practically.  Our practices are our habits. In pragmatic ethics there is the Primacy of Habits, which empower and restrict.  They explore the Social nature of habits and the relation of habit to will.  For them Morality Is a Habit and being fallibilists, pragmatists know that no habits are flawless.  They also hold that Morality is social and that Changing habits for moral reasons is necessary.

Features of pragmatic ethics

Employs criteria, but is not criterial

Gleaning insights from other ethical theories

Relative without being relativistic

Tolerant without being irresolute

Theory and Practice

“Embracing a Pragmatist Ethic

A pragmatic ethic is not based on principles, but it is not unprincipled. Deliberation plays a significant role, albeit a different role than that given it on most accounts. Morality does not seek final absolute answers, yet it is not perniciously relativistic. It does recognize that circumstances can be different, and that in different circumstances, different actions may be appropriate. So it does not demand moral uniformity between people and across cultures. Moreover, it understands moral advance as emerging from the crucible of experience, not through the proclamations of something or someone outside us. Just as ideas only prove their superiority in dialogue and in conflict with other ideas, moral insight can likewise prove its superiority in dialogue and conflict with other ideas and experiences. Hence, some range of moral disagreement and some amount of different action will be not be, for the pragmatist, something to bemoan. It will be integral to moral advancement, and thus should be permitted and even praised, not lamented. Only someone who thought theory could provide final answers, and answers without the messy task of doing battle on the marketplace of ideas and of life, would find this regrettable”