Title: Conservatism and pragmatism : in law, politics, and ethics /
Authors: Vannatta, Seth, 1973-
Year: 2014
Subjects: Conservatism; Pragmatism.
Abstract: Conservatism and Pragmatism builds on the insights of classical British conservative thought and classical American pragmatist philosophy in order to illustrate the methodological norms which inform inquiry into ethics, politics, law, and history. The conservative is skeptical of the ahistorical rationalism that permeates social contract and deliberative democratic theory in politics, deontology and utilitarianism in ethics, and formalism in law. A skeptical conservative begins inquiry, not with a priori principles, but within the received traditions, customs, and cultural experiences of some particular context, much as a pragmatist begins inquiry with experience. Both of these methodologies eschew the false universalism of a priori thinking, and turn instead to localized, contextual, and experiential inquiry. The pragmatist and conservative skeptic of rationalism includes aesthetic dimensions of experience in theoretical reflections about morality. The conservative and pragmatist attend to custom, habit, and experience, not first principles, but in moral, political, and legal inquiries.
Contents: Pt. I Rationalism in Politics and Ethics -- 1. Enlightenment Political Theory and British Conservatism -- Social contracts and states of nature -- Kant's transcendental politics -- Paine's radicalism -- Burke's conservatism -- Burke's progressivism -- 2. Enlightenment Moral Theory and British Conservatism -- Utilitarian moral theory -- Deontology -- Hume's conservatism in moral theory -- Scottish common sense philosophy -- British conservatives: harbingers of pragmatism -- pt. II The Question of History -- 3. The 19th Century and History -- G.W.F. Hegel -- Karl Marx -- Charles Darwin -- Sir Henry Maine -- 4. The Problem of History -- Foundations for science -- Historical positivism -- Postmodernism and neo-pragmatism -- Historical relativism -- Problems for history -- 5. Conservative and Pragmatist Historical Inquiry -- Dewey's history qua inquiry -- Oakeshott's inferential history of the present -- Gadamer's hermeneutics -- pt. III Normative Methodologies in Law, Ethics, and Politics -- 6. Pragmatist Responses to Enlightenment Reason -- Peirce on Cartesian "capacities" -- Peirce on Cartesian doubt -- Dewey's reconstruction of the quest for certainty -- F.A. Hayek's evolutionary epistemology -- 7. Conservatism and Pragmatism in Holmes's Jurisprudence -- Holmes's pragmatism -- Holmes's critique of legal formalism -- Peircean foundations for the external standard -- Judicial restraint and experimentalism -- 8. The Aesthetic Dimensions of Moral Experience -- Taste and reflective judgment -- Holmes's pragmatist ethics -- John Dewey's moral theory -- Reflection and imagination -- Peirce's conservative moral philosophy -- 9. The Conservative Mind by Comparative Analysis -- Burke and Dewey -- Gadamer and Dewey -- Oakeshott and Dewey -- Oakeshott and Peirce -- 10. Conservative and Pragmatist Politics -- Utopianism -- Meliorism -- Conservatism and critical philosophies -- The claims of conservative politics.