Introduction

Abstract

In contemporary American colloquial discourse, conservatism and pragmatism have little in common. “Conservative” serves as a moniker for many things right wing and Republican, but it includes an odd, inconsistent coalition of beliefs and policy considerations — from social conservative defenses of traditional marriage, neo-liberal fetishes for free market logic, neo-conservative goals of remaking the globe in an American image, to the denial of the separation of church and state by the religious right. “Liberal,” despite its origins in free market economics, defenses of individual rights, rule-of-law politics, and because of its transformation in the early 20th century, remains as the label symbolizing the refraction of each of these positions — from marriage equality and advocacy for government regulation and entitlement policies, to deference to international law and secular policies in the public sphere. In jurisprudence, the terms conservative and liberal almost always refer to the decisions of judges favored by the political right and left, and thus have little to do with a consistent methodology. Pragmatism, in colloquial discourse, usually refers to the non-ideological stance that what works is what is best — that practice precedes theory in politics.

Pragmatism represents in the arena of conceptual change what Burke represents in that of political change, a cautionary voice protesting those who seek to overthrow the amassed wisdom of generations on no better basis than the trifling speculations of philosophers.¹

David Luban, Legal Modernism