Pragmatism

Unlike other philosophic approaches, pragmatism posits no ideal, ultimate, absolute principles of right and wrong. Good and bad are determined by the application of human intelligence to the problems at hand and by the effect that negotiated compromises have on the lives of individuals and the communities in which they live. Pragmatic philosophy is an outgrowth of the earlier work of Charles H. Peirce, William James, John Dewey, and George Herbert Mead and later extensions by C. I. Lewis, W. V. O. Quine, and Richard Rorty. The approach generally adheres to a correspondence theory of truth: Truth consists of a relation to reality. The competing coherence theory associates truth with some specified set of propositions.

Pragmatic concepts have been applied to ethical issues in business ...

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