Pragmatist Ethics: A Problem-Based Approach to What Matters

Contents
Acknowledgments
Notes on In-Text Citations
Introduction
Chapter 1. What’s the Good of Goodness?
	Plato’s Doubts
	James’s Doubts
	The Tragic Sense of Life
	Problem-Based Ethics
Chapter 2. Pragmatism and the Roots of Problem-Based Ethics
	The Pragmatic Maxim: Theory to Practice
	Truth and Goodness Reconceived
	Communities of Inquiry
	Democracy as a Community of Inquiry
	Scientific Ethics and Experiments of Living
	Meliorism: Convergence, Growth, Improvement, Progress
Chapter 3. Practical Life
	Practices
	Practices as Solutions to Problems
	What Is a Problem?
	The Normative Character of Practices
	The Normative Governance of Practices
Chapter 4. Practical Reasoning
	The Desire-Belief Model of Moral Motivation
	From Practical Reasoning to Practical Knowledge
	Problems as Moral Guidance
Chapter 5. Normative Science
	The General and the Particular in Practical Knowledge
	Know-How and Know-That
	Practical Hypotheses
	Normative Naturalism
	The Empirical Warrant for Prudential Norms
	The Empirical Warrant for Good Ends and Righteous Means
Chapter 6. Communities of Inquiry
	The Ends and Means of Inquiry
	The Problem of Epistemarchy
	Problems and the Governance of Practices
Chapter 7. Change for the Better
	Progress as Preference for Ways of Life
	The Cumulative Theory of Progress
	Progress as a Function of Problem-Solving Effectiveness
	Moral Progress
	Has There Been Progress?
	Generalizing Problem-Solving Effectiveness
Conclusion
References
Index