This paper suggests that lessons from the field of environmental ethics and sociological perspectives on knowledge are important tools for rethinking what type of ethical analysis is needed for building up further the field of development ethics and, more generally, for addressing some of the most fundamental ethical problems related to global poverty and development. The paper argues for a methodologically pragmatist approach to development ethics that focuses on the interplay between facts, values, concepts and practices. It views development ethics (...) as a hybrid between a public moral?political philosophy and a public conception of social science. Ethical analyses of poverty and development must lead to fundamental changes in the ways knowledge is produced and justified and must challenge the dominance of global institutions and orthodox economics as the single sources of expert knowledge for development. Two of the main tasks of ethical analysis is to provide tools for the formulation of alternative knowledge for development centred on the equal moral worth of all human beings, and to influence global policy making as well as multilateral institutions' goals and policies. The last section of the paper argues that Amartya Sen's version of the Capability Approach is already methodologically pragmatist and points to some convergence between Sen's work and John Dewey's. Further sociological and methodologically pragmatist analysis of the approach is needed to assess the ways in which it is influencing debates on human development and leading to policy changes, and the possible distortions it suffers when adopted by multilateral agencies and policy makers. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the international conference on Ethics and Development at Michigan State University, East Landing (USA) 8?15 April 2005. The section on methodological pragmatism draws from an unpublished paper written with Andrew Light called ?A Pragmatist Methodology for Development Ethics,? presented at the American Philosophical Association (APA) meeting in New York, December 1999. I have updated, transformed and used some parts and insights developed with Light in a way he may not recognize. (shrink)

Methodological pragmatists argue that, given the dire state of the environment, the primary goal of environmentalists, including philosophers who work in environmental ethics, must be to work together to ensure that environmentally friendly policies are put into place. They must set aside their differences and not argue over their competing theoretical justifications of environmental policies, as that contributes to divisiveness among environmentalists and prevents this cooperation from occurring. The proposal to ignore disagreements over theory gets cashed out in three (...) distinct ways, however, and consequently one can identify three distinct versions of methodological pragmatism. Radical methodological pragmatists propose that environmentalists give up on the task of providing well-founded theoretical justifications for environmentally friendly policies and stop engaging in debates over these justifications; rather, they should focus on providing reasons for these policies that connect with whatever values people already have. Moderate methodological pragmatists propose that although there is nothing problematic in offering theoretical justifications in contexts where environmental philosophers disagree on what policy should be adopted, they should work together and put aside their theoretical differences where policy recommendations coincide. Finally, weak methodological pragmatists hold only that environmental philosophers should work together where their policies coincide and there are no additional practical or moral considerations that might be relevant to their ability to work together. The first two positions involve interesting claims, but they are fundamentally flawed. On the other hand, the third is unobjectionable but largely trivial. Thus, there is no reason to think that method­ological pragmatism can contribute to the resolution of problems in environmental ethics. (shrink)

This original and important work is a sequel to Conceptual Idealism and The Primacy of Practice. It is a systematic treatment of the "problem of the legitimation of factual knowledge"-a central issue of rational warrant or cognitive rationality. It offers a doctrine of methodological pragmatism, as distinct from theses pragmatism—a distinction analogous to act- and rule-utilitarianism. Theses pragmatism "asserts that a proposition is to be accepted if its adoption is maximally success-promoting," whereas methodological pragmatism (...) "asserts that a proposition is to be accepted if it conforms to an epistemologically warranted criterion and that a criterion is warranted if its adoption as a generic principle for propositional acceptance is maximally success-promoting ". Thus what is offered is a pragmatic justification of cognitive methodology in factual inquiry rather than the pragmatic validation of factual theses. (shrink)

In this paper it will be argued that Beauchamp and Childress' principle-based approach to bioethics has strongly pragmatic features. Drawing on the writings of William James, I first develop an understanding of methodological pragmatism as a method of justification. On the basis of Beauchamp's and Childress' most recent proposals concerning moral justification in the fifth edition of their Principles of Biomedical Ethics (2001), I then discuss different aspects that the principle-based approach and methodological pragmatism have in (...) common. (shrink)

Jurisprudes today differ in their interpretations of H.L.A. Hart’s analysis of the semantics of internal legal statements. Drawing upon the philosophy of language and metaethics to reconstruct Hart’s view, they disagree as to whether Hart should be interpreted as an expressivist or quasi-expressivist. In this paper I propose a third reconstruction, under which Hart adopted an inferentialist analysis of the semantics of internal legal statements. In executing this reconstruction, I focus on Hart’s inaugural lecture, and utilize the theoretical apparatus of (...) Robert Brandom, a leading advocate of inferential role semantics, to bring Hart’s methodological pragmatist—and more specifically inferentialist—insight in that lecture to the fore. (shrink)

University of Turku, Finland In this article, relationalist approaches to social sciences are analyzed in terms of a conceptual distinction between "philosophizing sociology" and "sociologizing philosophy." These mark two different attitudes toward philosophical metaphysics and ontological commitments. The authors’ own pragmatist methodological relationalism of Deweyan origin is compared with ontologically committed realist approaches, as well as with Bourdieuan methodological relationalism. It is argued that pragmatist philosophy of social sciences is an appropriate tool for assisting social scientists in their (...) methodological work, especially as regards problem-driven case studies. Key Words: metaphysics • pragmatism • realism • relationalism. (shrink)

In this paper we claim that pragmatist philosophical practice is incompatible with scientistic philosophy. The kind of pragmatism used for making this case follows the spirit and method of philosophical pragmatists such as William James, John Dewey, Richard Rorty, and a related pragmatic tradition, Confucian Philosophy. Pragmatism starts from immediate experience, and refuses to cleave off the reality and salience of what is found in such experience in the process of thinking. Pragmatism also concerns itself with social (...) problems, broadly conceived. In contrast to this focus on immediate experience, the influence of science in much philosophizing involves a kind of scientism through which the relevance, value, and even reality of experience is brought into question. It also concerns itself with a narrowly defined set of so-called philosophical problems. In this regard, pragmatist philosophical practice is fundamentally opposed to scientistic philosophical practice. We will start by modelling the kind of philosophical practice that stems from pragmatism, and the role of immediate experience in it. Subsequently, we will introduce two modes of philosophizing that diminish if not negate the role of experience. One is bald naturalist philosophizing, and the other is a priori scientific philosophizing. In the last section, we will show how main commitments of both of these traditions are incompatible with a pragmatist philosophy that remains committed to the original impulse of pragmatism. (shrink)

_A much-needed consideration of methodology in comparative philosophy._.

A much-needed consideration of methodology in comparative philosophy.

Robert Smid is senior lecturer in philosophy and religion at Curry College in Milton, Massachusetts. This book, a slightly revised version of his recent PhD dissertation from Boston University, is dedicated to Robert Cummings Neville, under whose guidance it was originally written. As the title suggests, this volume explores various methods of comparative philosophers in the pragmatist and process traditions of American philosophy. Smid thus focuses his analytic lens on William Ernest Hocking (1873–1966), F. S. C. Northrop (1893–1992), the collaborative (...) work of David Hall (1937–2001) and Roger Ames (1947-), and Neville himself (1939-). The four chapters at the heart of the book—between the introduction and final .. (shrink)

This book brings together, for the first time, philosophers of pragmatism and economists interested in methodological questions. The main theoretical thrust of Dewey is to unite inquiry with behavior and this book's contributions assess this insight in the light of developments in modern American philosophy, social and legal theories, and the theoretical orientation of economics. This unique book contains impressive contributions from a range of different perspectives and its unique nature will make it required reading for academics involved (...) with philosophy and economics. (shrink)

The debates of the 1980s and 1990s on methodological individualism versus methodological holism have not been adequately resolved. Within analytical Marxism, G.A. Cohen, John Roemer, Jon Elster and others have come down in favour of methodological individualism as part of the effort to make analytical Marxism more 'scientific' and 'rigorous' than earlier versions of Marxism. In doing so they have presented methodological individualism as a necessary ingredient in ridding Marxism of obscurantism. This view is here challenged (...) from a pragmatist philosophical perspective. It is argued that, from such a perspective, the debates between the individualists and holists should have been dissolved rather than resolved in favour of the individualists. It is suggested that such dissolution would even strengthen analytical Marxism by redirecting analytical energies towards real social and political problems in the contemporary world and away from endless methodological debate. (shrink)

This essay explores the Foucauldian influence on Cornel West’s prophetic pragmatism. Although West argues that Foucauldian methods are insufficient to deliver a philosophy of liberation, I argue that there is nothing in Foucault that would prohibit West from such a goal, even though a philosophy of liberation was not one of Foucault’s goals. Fortunately, one can understand West’s own project of liberation in terms of “practices of freedom,” allowing one to describe West’s philosophical project in strict Foucauldian terms.

In a 2006 interview, Bruno Latour, distancing himself from the French philosopher Alain Badiou, casually remarks, “I’m the only French pragmatist, so it winds up that I have absolutely no contact with the French”. Latour’s remark is curious insofar as the work performed by the coupling reveals his own dissociation of French philosophy with pragmatism. If Latour is French, he cannot possibly be a pragmatist, but if he is a pragmatist, he cannot possibly be French, so better to refer (...) to himself by this new hybrid, “French pragmatist.”Perhaps it is not so peculiar for Latour to describe himself as a “pragmatist,” since references to classical pragmatist figures like William James and John... (shrink)

One of the seemingly dominant traits of pragmatic thought is its “antimetaphysical” attitude. And, indeed, the general methodology of pragmatism may seem by its very nature to exclude the possibility of speculative philosophy, for any pragmatic metaphysics must be at once faithful to the limits of meaningfulness and knowledge imposed by a pragmatic epistemology and in harmony with the scientific spirit of pragmatic philosophy in general. The following essay will examine a pragmatic methodology for metaphysics as it emerges when (...) the philosophies of C. S. Peirce and C. I. Lewis are used for mutual clarification. It is not here held that all pragmatists would accept the methodology which will emerge from such a mutual clarification; neither is it held that no pragmatists other than Peirce or Lewis would accept it. Moreover, it is not held that either Peirce or Lewis consciously embraced it in its entirety. This, however, is not to say that the present procedure is arbitrary, for it is justifiable by the intelligibility of the methodology of metaphysics which emerges and the usefulness of this methodology in clarifying the systematic consistency of epistemology and metaphysics in a pragmatically oriented philosophy. Indeed, according to the basic doctrines of pragmatism, no other justification can be offered for this or any interpretive schema. (shrink)

Contemporary developments in economicmethodology have produced a vibrant agenda ofcompeting positions. These include, amongothers, constructivism, critical realism andrhetoric, with each contributing to the Realistvs. Pragmatism debate in the philosophies of thesocial sciences. A major development in theneo-pragmatist contribution to economicmethodology has been Quine's pragmatic assaulton the dogmas of empiricism, which are nowclearly acknowledged within contemporaryeconomic methodology. This assault isencapsulated in the celebrated Duhem-Quinethesis, which according to a number ofcontemporary leading philosophers of economics,poses a particularly serious methodologicalproblem for economics. This (...) problem, asreflected in Hausman's analysis, consists ofthe inability of economics to learn fromexperience, thereby subverting the capacity totest economic theories. In this paper wedispute this position. Our argument is basedon a combination of Quine's holism with VanFraassen's constructive empiricism, especiallythe latter's analysis of empirical adequacy andhis pragmatic approach to explanation. Theresulting reorientation of economic methodologyrestores the capacity of economics to learnfrom experience and reinstates the imperativeof developing alternatives to orthodoxtheorizing in economics. (shrink)

Being an introduction to a special issue on the theme of “Foucault and Pragmatism” this article offers a brief set of metaphilosophical comments on the project of building bridges across familiar philosophical divides. The paper addresses questions in metaphilosophical methodology raised by the pairing in the issue title: What is at stake in the comparison of philosophical figures like Michel Foucault and John Dewey? What is at stake in the comparison of philosophical traditions such as Genealogy and Pragmatism? (...) How can we most effectively develop comparative work across the entrenched divides, which such comparative work often labors to overcome? (shrink)

Purpose. The paper is aimed at studying the specificity of anthropological problematics in pragmatism from the perspective of its ability to be the source of analytic philosophy evolution in the socio-humanitarian direction. Theoretical basis of the research is determined by the works of the representatives of classical pragmatism, neopragmatism, post-pragmatism and analytic pragmatism. Their works give a clear understanding of the important place of anthropological searches in the theory of pragmatism. Originality. On the basis of (...) the analysis of logical, epistemological and metaphysical ideas formulated by representatives of pragmatism, it is proved that pragmatic methodology is anthropocentric. It is established that the ideological and social foundations of pragmatism can be determined as pluralistic ones due to the attention to the human person. It is revealed that theoretical and methodological searches of pragmatism can be effective in the formation of the socio-humanitarian concepts in analytic philosophy through the specification of strategies for the cognition of human existence in such terms as experience or self and the development of practical ways to justify the truth of knowledge. Conclusions. Pragmatists criticized impersonal, formal thinking, which cannot be an effective means of cognition. Thinking has a social basis and is entirely personal. Justifying its dependence on the socio-cultural sphere and the internal intentions of the subject, it is possible to develop an effective logical theory that operates symbols not only at the syntactic or semantic level but also takes into account the pragmatic aspect of language. Anthropological problematics is also important in the theory of knowledge, the core of which is the notion of pragmatic belief, which enables truth and religious beliefs, since the foundation of the theory of truth is determined by the principle of humanism, and the truth is interpreted as a value orientation. Knowing the external world, we find in it the similarity with us – that’s why the metaphysical foundations of being, according to pragmatism, are personified, and the methodology is defined in anthropomorphic terms. Applying it, the study of human existence is specified in the analysis of psychological and socio-cultural dimensions of such concepts as experience or self. Attempts to comprehend the nature of human existence in pragmatism are empirically grounded. Appealing to science, methodological pluralism, the search for socio-cultural background for thinking and suitable linguistic forms of expression of human experience are the achievements of pragmatism, which are the basis for the socio-humanitarian redescription of analytic methodology. (shrink)

Almost twenty years ago, a genuinely new school of thought emerged in the field of jurisprudential methodology. It is a pragmatist school. Roughly, the pragmatists contend that, when inquiring about the nature of law, we should evaluate potential answers based on practical criteria. For many legal philosophers, this contention seems both unclear and unhinged. That appearance is lamentable. The pragmatist approach to jurisprudential methodology has received insufficient attention for at least two reasons. First, the pragmatists do not conceive of themselves (...) as comprising a school; in fact, these proponents have different names for their common position, which makes it hard to see the commonalities. Second, the most famous statement of the pragmatist view has received withering criticism, criticism that has not been sufficiently answered, a fact that may lead opponents of pragmatism, as well as potential supporters, to doubt that a viable view of this kind can be held. This Essay aims to serve as a corrective. (shrink)

In this chapter I lay out a notion of philosophical naturalism that aligns with pragmatism. It is developed and illustrated by a presentation of my views on natural kinds and my theory of concepts. Both accounts reflect a methodological naturalism and are defended not by way of metaphysical considerations, but in terms of their philosophical fruitfulness. A core theme is that the epistemic interests of scientists have to be taken into account by any naturalistic philosophy of science in (...) general, and any account of natural kinds and scientific concepts in particular. I conclude with general methodological remarks on how to develop and defend philosophical notions without using intuitions. (shrink)

Environmental pragmatism is a new strategy in environmental thought. It argues that theoretical debates are hindering the ability of the environmental movement to forge agreement on basic policy imperatives. This new direction in environmental thought moves beyond theory, advocating a serious inquiry into the merits of moral pluralism. Environmental pragmatism, as a coherent philosophical position, connects the methodology of classical American pragmatic thought to the explanation, solution and discussion of real issues. This concise, well-focused collection is the first (...) comprehensive presentation of environmental pragmatism as a new philosophical approach to environmental thought and policy. (shrink)

Function-first approaches illuminate phenomena by investigating their functional roles. I first describe virtues of this approach. By foregrounding normal instances of knowledge, for example, function-first theorising offers a much-needed corrective to epistemology's counterexample-driven momentum towards increasingly byzantine, marginal cases. And epistemic practices are shaped by human limitations, needs, vices, and power relations. These non-ideal, naturalistic forces of embodied sociality form the roots of function-first theorising, which creates a fecund foundation for social epistemology. Secondly, I consider an objection to function-first theorising. (...) The objection holds that function-first approaches lack adjudicatory power. That is, function-first proposals are overly compatible with diverse claims about knowledge, which encourages “just so” speculation. In response to this concern, I advocate methodological pluralism in epistemological theorising. All methods have limitations; researchers must be mindful of those limits and fruitfully combine multiple methods. I illustrate with Hannon's function-first based arguments for “epistemic pragmatism”, which denies that the meaning of “knows” is determined by truth conditions. Finally, I argue that function-first theorising motivates staunch anti-skepticism about knowledge. Practical forces cannot chisel a sharp threshold for how much evidence is required for knowledge. But thinking this supports radical skepticism about knowledge conflates fuzzy thresholds and high ones. (shrink)

There are realist philosophers and social scientists who believe in the indispensability of social ontology. However, we argue that certain pragmatist outlines for inquiry open more fruitful roads to empirical research than such ontologizing perspectives. The pragmatist conceptual tools in a Darwinian vein—concepts like action, habit, coping and community—are in a particularly stark contrast with, for instance, the Searlean and Chomskian metaphysics of human being. In particular, we bring Searle's realist philosophy of society and mind under critical survey in this (...) paper and contrast it with a pragmatist, sociologizing approach. Drawing from Dewey, James, and recent antirepresentationalism, we propose for research work a methodological relationalism of its own kind, altogether detached from the ontologies of society and mind. (shrink)

This book aims to make the pragmatist intellectual framework accessible to organization and management scholars. It presents some fundamental concepts of Pragmatism, their potential application to the study of organizations and the resulting theoretical, methodological, and practical issues.

This article offers the outlines of a historically-informed conception of critical inquiry herein named genealogical pragmatism. This conception of critical inquiry combines the genealogical emphasis on problematization featured in Michel Foucault's work with the pragmatist emphasis on reconstruction featured in John Dewey's work. The two forms of critical inquiry featured by these thinkers are not opposed, as is too commonly supposed. Genealogical problematization and pragmatist reconstruction fit together for reason of their mutual emphasis on the importance of history for (...) philosophy. In so fitting together they repair crucial deficits in both traditions as they currently stand on their own. The resulting conception of critical inquiry as simultaneously problematizational and reconstructive is offered as a first step toward a crucial philosophical task we face today: articulating normativity without foundations. (shrink)

F. Thomas Burke believes that pragmatism, especially as it has been employed in politics and social action, needs a reassessment. He examines the philosophies of William James and Charles S. Peirce to determine how certain maxims of pragmatism originated. Burke contrasts pragmatism as a certain set of beliefs or actions with pragmatism as simply a methodology. He unravels the complex history of this philosophical tradition and discusses contemporary conceptions of pragmatism found in current US political (...) discourse and explains what this quintessentially American philosophy means today. (shrink)

Nursing is frequently described as practical or pragmatic and there are many parallels between nursing and pragmatism, the school of thought. Pragmatism is often glancingly referenced by nursing authors, but few have conducted in-depth discussions about its applicability to nursing; and few have identified it as a significant theoretical basis for nursing research. William James's pragmatism has not been discussed substantially in the nursing context, despite obvious complementarities. James's theme of pluralism fits with nursing's diversity and plurality; (...) his emphasis on social conscience in our actions matches nursing's fundamental purpose of improving the lives of others; his continuous testing of pluralistic truths in critically reflective practice pairs well with nursing's focus on developing best-available, holistic evidence; and his conceptualization of truth as being born in practice and becoming an instrument in practice is entirely compatible with nursing's theory–practice identity. The oft-discussed theory–practice gap is seen to hinder the development of nursing knowledge. If nursing is to find its identity in knowledge development and potentiate the knowledge developed, it is imperative to identify and address that which is impeding progress. By way of the pragmatic tenets of William James, I will argue that a significant part of the theory–practice gap lies in how nursing knowledge development is operationalized, creating a false dichotomy between practice and research. I will also argue that the research–practice schism has been widened by continued philosophical and methodological infighting in the research community. I will describe how Jamesian pragmatism can be 'what works' for rebuilding relationships and supporting an engaged plurality within nursing research and bring research and practice together into a collaborative and iterative process of developing nursing knowledge. (shrink)

Engineering is a practice that must function in an environment of incomplete and uncertain knowledge. This environment has become even more difficult in an increasingly complex world. Engineering ethics has to be framed and taught in a way that addresses these realities. This paper proposes a combination of the philosophy of pragmatism and the ethic of care as a possible framework for the practice of engineering ethics that can provide flexibility and openness to address engineering ethics problems more realistically (...) within the ethos and culture of engineering. Embedding values into practice, pragmatism and care provide a broad, reflective, and corrective framework for engineering ethics that can accommodate the realities in which engineering operates. It is shown that these two approaches are more consonant with design methodologies and have a natural fit with design thinking, so they mesh well with what engineers do and with the complexities of their work today. As humans more and more try to alter the socio-techno-natural world, e.g., the earth’s climate, the combination of pragmatism and care will allow enhanced ethical behavior. Alterations to complex adaptive systems will produce highly uncertain results that require engineers to have a mindset that allows them to act with humility in the face of significant uncertainty and potential catastrophic failures. (shrink)

La investigación científica trae consigo múltiples cuestiones, que este libro analiza centrándose en dos grandes corrientes metodológicas: el pragmatismo y el pluralismo. En el primero destacan autores como Nicholas Rescher, que tiene un capítulo en el libro, y en lo segundo hay cada vez más partidarios, muchos de los cuales reconocen el papel de Patrick Suppes en el giro para deslindarse del monismo metodológico, que fue dominante durante un buen número de años. Mediante la reflexión filosófico-metodológica se profundiza en el (...) libro en los procedimientos de investigación, que es la fase inicial para resolver problemas científicos, y en los métodos, que siguen después, dotados mayor grado de rigor que propician la sistematicidad en la indagación de lo real (sea natural, social o artificial). Por un lado, quien investiga ha de seguir los procesos para estudiar adecuadamente su objeto y poder resolver los problemas que plantea ese estudio; y, por otro lado, la realidad a conocer ha de ser inteligible mediante los recursos epistemológicos, de uso de procesos de investigación y de los materiales adecuados, bien sea para la observación o para la investigación. (shrink)

The publication of Professor Rescher’s Methodological Pragmatism marks his most recent attempt to articulate his version of pragmatism. It also constitutes, with his The Primacy of Practice and Conceptual Idealism, a sustained modernization of an indigenous American philosophy. The Primacy of Practice is subtitled “Essays Towards a Pragmatical Kantian Theory of Empirical Knowledge.” It contains chapters on practical reason, the justification of induction, laws, noumenal causality in Kant, and instrumental reasoning in ethics. Conceptual Idealism attempts to place (...) some of these same topics in a specifically ontological context, an ontology both Kantian and, Rescher claims, pragmatic. The new book, Methodological Pragmatism, A Systems-Theoretic Approach to the Theory of Knowledge, is a more systematic, more ambitious examination of pragmatism, together with chapters which develop a defeasible concept of knowledge and an instrumentalist view of logic. There are also chapters outlining an evolutionary, Darwinian theory of the development of knowledge and of methodologies. Not since the days of James and Dewey has there been such a systematic presentation of this philosophy. A study of American pragmatism cannot now be made without a careful examination of Professor Rescher’s contribution. (shrink)

The publication of Professor Rescher’s Methodological Pragmatism marks his most recent attempt to articulate his version of pragmatism. It also constitutes, with his The Primacy of Practice and Conceptual Idealism, a sustained modernization of an indigenous American philosophy. The Primacy of Practice is subtitled “Essays Towards a Pragmatical Kantian Theory of Empirical Knowledge.” It contains chapters on practical reason, the justification of induction, laws, noumenal causality in Kant, and instrumental reasoning in ethics. Conceptual Idealism attempts to place (...) some of these same topics in a specifically ontological context, an ontology both Kantian and, Rescher claims, pragmatic. The new book, Methodological Pragmatism, A Systems-Theoretic Approach to the Theory of Knowledge, is a more systematic, more ambitious examination of pragmatism, together with chapters which develop a defeasible concept of knowledge and an instrumentalist view of logic. There are also chapters outlining an evolutionary, Darwinian theory of the development of knowledge and of methodologies. Not since the days of James and Dewey has there been such a systematic presentation of this philosophy. A study of American pragmatism cannot now be made without a careful examination of Professor Rescher’s contribution. (shrink)

This paper represents the first installment of alarger project devoted to the relevance of pragmatism forbioethics. One self-consciously pragmatist move would be toreturn to the classical pragmatist canon of Peirce, James andDewey in search of substantive doctrines or methodologicalapproaches that might be applied to current bioethicalcontroversies. Another pragmatist (or neopragmatist) move wouldbe to subject the regnant principlist paradigm to Richard Rorty'ssubversive assaults on foundationalism in epistemology andethics. A third pragmatist method, dubbed ``freestandingpragmatism'' by its proponents, embraces a ``pragmatist'' approachto (...) practical reasoning without discernable moorings either to theclassical canon or to Rorty's neopragmatism. This thirdpragmatist approach to method in practical ethics is the subjectof this article. I begin with an examination of freestandingpragmatism in the theory of judicial decision making. I arguethat this version of legal pragmatism – so described on account ofits commitments to contextualism, instrumentalism, eclecticism,and freedom from grand theory – bears a striking resemblance tomuch self-described pragmatist work in bioethics today. Ifurther argue that if this is what we mean by ``pragmatism,'' thenin a certain sense ``we are all pragmatists now.''. (shrink)