Practical Roles of Pragmatism in Pastoral Counseling Ethics
Pragmatism
Alusine M. Kanu, D.A.
This essay discusses the function of pragmatism with practical consideration in pastoral ethics. Ethical pragmatists expect that the norms, principles, or moral criteria accessible to humans at any given time are unlikely to be full or directly applicable, and most likely to be supplanted as society progresses. What makes pragmatic knowledge challenging to have an understanding of is that this knowledge, substantially like culture itself, is for the most portion unconscious. Pragmatic ethics focuses on society, rather than on lone people, as the entity which achieves morality. It does not hold that a moral judgment may well be proper in one particular age of a given society, even even though it ceases to be appropriate just after that society progresses. Pragmatic ethics does not hold any known moral criteria as beyond potential for revisions (LaFollette, 2000). For pragmatists the matter of ethics is approached practically. They explore the social nature of habits and the relation of habit to will.
Fishman (1999) proposes a bold and innovative solution to the dilemma of deciding what functions finest. His resolution could be applied to any psychological or social intervention in any setting. Based on the philosophy of pragmatism, Fishman proposes to reconstruct a range of levels, progressing from a person to a dyad, family members, community, or nation. From a pragmatic perspective it is advantageous to explore the consequences of such an approach considering that an individual is broadly defined.
To discover to care ethically, beyond the intimacy of family life, is to employ a specific sort of response to another—one which acknowledges, from mutual experience, that the desire to really feel care for is reciprocal and shared. Although understanding to act ethically on this understanding might possibly be the product of cognition and practice, the actual expertise of it and inclination toward it is, Noddings (1984) believes, fully natural. While natural caring demands little or no effort, ethical caring involves a careful understanding of the nature of the moral situation, the wants of other individuals, our own desires, and a commitment to some action. Caring inherent in obligation is distinct from all-natural caring only insofar as it entails relationships not yet cultivated. Ethical caring (moral life) is thus wholly dependent on what is already felt in our relationships with others and the sort of self that responds to such sentiments. Noddings writes, "The source of ethical behavior is, then, in twin sentiments—one that feels straight for the other and one that feels for and with that ideal self who could accept and sustain the initial feelings rather than reject it" (Noddings, 1984).
A pragmatic approach is a theoretical integration that attempts to bring a number of theories together by way of the improvement of a theoretical framework that can clarify the environmental, motivational, cognitive, and affective domains of an individual. With integrationist, as well as with other psychologists, truth is changeable. New truth replaces old truth as new truth is theorized, conceived, or found. Psychotherapy integration includes harmonious efforts to connect affective, cognitive, behavioral, and systems approaches under a single theory, and the application of this theory to the therapy of men and women, couples, and families. The notion integrates diverse models of human functioning (Goldfried, 1995). Considering that humans are integrated beings, an integrative strategy to counseling focuses on thinking, feeling, and acting. Such a combination is important to support clientele believe about their beliefs and assumptions, to knowledge on a feeling level their conflicts and struggles, and to translate insights into action applications.
