Pragmatic ethics is the result of the application of the principles of pragmatism to moral issues. Pragmatism was founded by the American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce and was developed by the American philosophers William James and John Dewey.
Pragmatism is epistemological by nature but can be applied to ethics. As an epistemological doctrine, pragmatism holds the belief that the true and meaningful form of knowledge is one that is practical, workable, beneficial, and useful. Thus, in pragmatism, if an idea works or brings good results, then it is true and meaningful. If it does not, then that idea is meaningless, that is, it has no value.
According to the pragmatists, an idea is practical if it produces good results, workable if it can be put to work, beneficial if it benefits people, and useful if it can be used to attain good results.
How do we know that an idea is practical, workable, beneficial, and useful? In other words, how do we know that an idea is true and meaningful?
According to William James, ideas are proven to be true and meaningful through the process of experimentation. Hence, for James, ideas are value-neutral from the beginning; their truth and meaning can be proven through testing or experimentation. For example, how do we know that Coca Cola tastes good? Of course, according to James, by tasting it. Or if someone claims that condoms are the most effective and reliable contraceptive, then its truth and meaning can be proven by using and comparing them with other contraceptives.
John Dewey, on the other hand, argues that ideas are proven to be true and meaningful if they proved to be an effective instrument in attaining something. Thus, Dewey’s model of pragmatism can be viewed as a form of instrumentalism.
Applying Pragmatism to Ethics
When applied to moral issues, a pragmatist may view the morality of a human act from the vantage point of its practicality, workability, beneficiality, and usefulness. Hence, in pragmatic ethics, an action is considered morally right if it is practical, workable, beneficial, and useful; otherwise, it has no moral worth.
Let us take, for example, the moral issue of aborting a deformed fetus.
As we can see, in Christian ethics, particularly St. Thomas Aquinas’s model of ethics, abortion in whatever form is absolutely immoral because in the first place the act is evil because it implies killing. For the pragmatists, however, it is better to abort a deformed fetus than let it suffer for a lifetime. The act of aborting a deformed fetus for the pragmatists, therefore, is:
- practical because it will produce good results, such as sparing the parents and the child himself from physical, mental and emotional suffering that may be brought by the deformity;
- workable because obviously the act of aborting a deformed fetus can be put to work;
- beneficial to both the parents and the child, especially in terms of freedom from physical and emotional suffering that may be brought by the deformity; and
- useful because it can be used to attain good results, such as, again, sparing the parents and the child himself from physical, mental and emotional suffering that may be brought by the deformity.
Let us take another example. A medical doctor may say to her patient: “The injection of this chemical compound is good for one who is suffering from diabetes.” For the pragmatists, if the patient regains his health after the injection of the chemical compound, then the act is judged as morally right. This is what William James meant by his famous phrase “truth happens to an idea”. In ethics, the pragmatists claim that “goodness” or the moral worth of action happens to the act itself.
As we can see, in pragmatic ethics, a human act is always value-neutral from the beginning. The morality of a human act depends on the quality of the results, that is, on its practicality, workability, beneficiality, and usefulness. Hence, in pragmatic ethics, morality does not seek final and absolute answers, yet it is not relativistic. Pragmatic ethics is not relativistic in the sense that it recognizes that there are different circumstances and that in different circumstances, different actions might be appropriate.