ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to plot a course for a rejuvenation of the original way in which some of the classical American philosophers looked at the moral question, especially as found in the thought of William James and John Dewey. One criticism of the pragmatic approach to decisions as has to do with the worthiness of tradition-saturated values. The argument is that a pragmatic attitude would always keep its eye on the future and have to begin anew each time one was faced with a decision or an evaluation. The chapter aims to isolate the following themes in the philosophy of James and Dewey, as touchstones for a radical reconstitution of an approach to ethics: transiency; pluralism; and meliorism. The moral characteristic which emerges from our pragmatic diagnosis of experience is that of pluralism. The pragmatic method can live with a variant of styles, so long as they are not absolute and allow for options under the press of experience.
