"What political commitments should Pragmatists hold?" seems to be floating around Twitter in bits and pieces so I thought I'd test out some claims.

I have some disclaimers along with reasoning but disclaimers are boring so I'll save those for now.

Not a Pragmatist? Hit Results.

Perfectability of knowledge (we have actionable beliefs now at least approximating truth, even as we attempt to improve accuracy and reliability of the beliefs) implies there is a chance better policies exist; we should identify and try new policies while doing what we can today.

Operationalizing knowledge (testing beliefs, observing the results of the tests, re-assessing beliefs in light of the tests) means that our knowledge is related in some way to the objective world; we can at times reject a status quo view because of this objectivity.

Beliefs (requiring a believer) will always be subjective, held from the believer's perspective; attempts to turn beliefs into policy should be justified in part by whether the believer's perspective is relevant to those impacted by the policy.

Facts and values are not independent; we should consider what facts informed our values and what values led us to our facts. (Related, re this thread: Pragmatism should lead us to support well-functioning policy.)

We should sometimes start from preferable outcomes (and present circumstances) and infer what methods would produce those outcomes rather than assuming we are stuck with present circumstances and present methods.

Citizens in a democracy should have the means to produce change in their government, and have a duty to do so when the citizens believe a change would be beneficial.