Freestanding pragmatism in law and bioethics

This paper represents the first installment of a larger project devoted to the relevance of pragmatism for bioethics. One self-consciously pragmatist move would be to return to the classical pragmatist canon of Peirce, James and Dewey in search of substantive doctrines or methodological approaches that might be applied to current bioethical controversies. Another pragmatist (or neopragmatist) move would be to subject the regnant principlist paradigm to Richard Rorty's subversive assaults on foundationalism in epistemology and ethics. A third pragmatist method, dubbed "freestanding pragmatism'' by its proponents, embraces a "pragmatist'' approach to practical reasoning without discernable moorings either to the classical canon or to Rorty's neopragmatism. This third pragmatist approach to method in practical ethics is the subject of this article. I begin with an examination of freestanding pragmatism in the theory of judicial decision making. I argue that this version of legal pragmatism - so described on account of its commitments to contextualism, instrumentalism, eclecticism, and freedom from grand theory - bears a striking resemblance to much self-described pragmatist work in bioethics today. I further argue that if this is what we mean by "pragmatism,'' then in a certain sense "we are all pragmatists now.''