Value-Free Science, Policy Advocacy, and Volitional Pragmatism

1. The Tasks of Volitional Pragmatism

Among other things, the philosophical tradition of pragmatism provides a theory of inquiry and a theory of collective action. The theory of inquiry frames how humans investigate their problems and devise solutions; the theory of collective action frames how we work together to implement solutions to shared problems. Though philosophical, pragmatism aims to integrate philosophy and practice by developing theory that is useful for solving the problems that press on people’s lives. In spite of this intention, and perhaps because of disciplinary boundaries, practitioners in the social sciences, sciences, and professions do not always see pragmatism as being as relevant and useful as philosophers have hoped and anticipated. Dan Bromley’s contribution to the 2014 Coss Dialogues and his 2006 book Sufficient Reason: Volitional Pragmatism and the Meaning of Economic Institutions do take up and apply pragmatist ideas to an analysis of economic institutions. Bromley’s work demonstrates how pragmatic theories of inquiry and collective action are integrated with each other and can be used to critique and revise contemporary public institutions. At the same time, his work raises questions for further philosophical investigation.

Bromley develops a theory of “volitional pragmatism” by applying pragmatism to his analysis of contemporary economics. His volitional pragmatism has two tasks: first, to offer a critique of economics and, second, to make a positive prescription for revising economic institutions. In his critique of the science of economics (and specifically of prescriptivist welfarism and rational choice theory), Bromley measures the concepts, axioms, predictions, and prescriptions of economics against the pragmatist yardsticks of warranted belief and valuable belief. In his paper, Bromley understands the Deweyan term “warranted belief” to be a “benediction bestowed by the disciplinary community” on a statement relevant to their disciplinary expertise (“Volitional Pragmatism” 6). In other words, Bromley holds the consensus of a scientific discipline to be a reliable basis for public decision making and, conversely, considers a lack of consensus to be a signal of unreliability. In addition, Bromley argues, scientific assertions must be judged as valuable by the public in order to be relevant to solving the public’s problems. Statements that are judged as truthful by scientific experts but that have no relevance to the public’s problems may rightfully receive public skepticism. Bromley proceeds to evaluate the findings of prescriptive welfarism, the disciplinary standards of economics, and its rate of evolution as a science. He finds that the axioms of welfarism rest on circular reasoning, that the prescriptions of welfarist economics are usually ignored by the public because they fail to meet the standard of valuable belief, and that academic economics has become an insular and static epistemic community that fails to respond to internal and external criticism.¹

Volitional pragmatism also aims to harness democratic processes to generate deliberative public judgment on policy questions. Bromley frames policy making as a form of collective inquiry whose goal is problem-solving social action; his task is to theorize about the institutions needed to direct policy making. The pragmatist theory of inquiry provides an epistemological justification and some procedural direction for how collectives can engage in a process of coming to know the right action to take at a particular time, whether the collective in question is a federal agency deciding on clean water regulations or a local city council deciding on whether and how best to preserve a historic building.

The tools that Bromley uses to undertake these two tasks draw on various aspects of the pragmatist tradition. Volitional pragmatism adopts a non-foundationalist epistemology, views knowledge as fallible, rejects a rigid fact-value distinction, and commits to democratic deliberation as well as to liberty of belief and action. Bromley builds his theory of “volitional pragmatism” out of elements drawn from all eras of pragmatism: though he leans most heavily on Peirce and on contemporary neo-neo-pragmatists Robert Brandom and Hans Joas, one can also detect the influence of Dewey’s political theory, Quine’s pragmatist attack on logical positivism, and Rorty’s neo-pragmatist anti-essentialism. Although there are significant differences among these pragmatists, the strands of pragmatism...