PRAGMATISM

Born in 1859, John Dewey was an influential American philosopher who graduated from John Hopkins University. Dewey and his co-worker, William James, were committed to education and democracy and was best known for creating the philosophy of pragmatism, which he believed could be seen in everyday experiences.

Pragmatism is defined as the belief that the truth or value of an idea is dependent on the idea’s practical effects; it focuses ideas based on their practicality of working in real life rather than abstract possibilities or rigid moral boundaries. Ultimately, pragmatism will evaluate the morality of the result based on its end result. For example, if you tell a white lie to maintain a strong friendship, pragmatism would consider that action as a moral one because it had a positive outcome.

Pragmatism is evaluated on three key ideas. The first is practical consequences; this is the idea that the morality of an action is judged by whether the outcome has positive or negative results. Positive results mean the action is moral, but negative actions prove otherwise. The second idea is ‘truth as evolving’. This ideology explains that truth is not a fixed entity, but instead a fluid subject that can change over time depending on what context it takes place in. The third key idea is the one of ‘experimentation’. It says ethical decisions should be approached like experiments, meaning if something doesn’t work, revise those parts and experiment again.

These three key ideas connect us to the key concepts of pragmatism. The first is that the truth is what works. Connected to the idea of evolving truth, this concept explains that truth is determined by experience, usefulness, and its ability to lead to desirable outcomes. The other key concept is fallibilism, which says that all knowledge is tentative and can change if new evidence arises from experimentation, another key idea we went over. Finally, Dewey not only believed in continuous learning and education, he also emphasized the vitality of democracy since they allowed multiple people to experiment and test their ideas together, making them stronger.

While pragmatism might seem similar to utilitarianism because both focus on results, utilitarianism uses strict measures to measure and maximize happiness, whereas pragmatism is more flexible and focuses on truth in a context rather than being fixed like utilitarianism.

Some popular arguments against pragmatism include the idea that pragmatism is too flexible. Because pragmatism relies on truth being ever-changing, philosophers commonly argue that one person’s truth and desirable outcome can be harmful to another. Another common argument is that pragmatism allows people to justify unethical behavior if it leads to good outcomes. Looking at the trolley problem for example, if you were to observe a trolley racing towards two people tied to the tracks but you had the ability to switch the trolley to another path where it would only run over one person tied to the track, which would you do? Pragmatism would argue that we should change the path of the trolley. However other philosophers would argue that we were making an inherently immoral and murderous action; before, we were just bystanders to the killing of two individuals. Now that we’ve voluntarily changed the path, we’ve murdered one person with our own hands rather than being a bystander, making our actions immoral in certain contexts.

Pragmatism is a complicated philosophical theory that relies on changing principles of truth and tries to overcome the simplicity of other rigid moral boundaries and what-ifs by embracing the practicality of the world. However, pragmatism opens the door to some tough questions. Because the measurement of morality isn’t as strictly based on lives saved here, how do we decide whose outcomes matter most?