Abstract

The goal of this paper is to argue that pragmatists interested in social justice ought to be committed to certain objective transcultural ethical ideals. In particular, I argue that we need an objective moral account of what counts as harm and flourishing for human beings. Pragmatists are usually characterized as rejecting the tenability of, or the need for, such objective standards. Instead, the question of whether a person's life is going well or badly is supposed to be answered by appealing to the standards of that person's community, appealing to ever-wider communities if necessary. The problem with this approach, I believe, is that it is far too easy to find historical and contemporary examples of communities ..