Over the past 10 years, the reception of pragmatist themes in political theory has been steadily increasing. This paper seeks to contribute to the growing literature by revisiting the role of moral absolutes in politics from a pragmatist perspective. More specifically, I propose the idea that pragmatism can support a particular defence of the absolute ban on torture. In contradistinction with deontological accounts, I will argue that moral absolutes should not be construed as external constraints on political action, but as constitutive rules that emerge from, and are sustained by, a web of intersecting social practices. The paper’s ambitions are twofold: (1) to delineate a plausible account of absolutes from within pragmatism, by distinguishing between conversation-stopping and conversation-enabling rules of reasoning; (2) to outline an indirect defence of the prohibition on torture by uncovering the illicit moves of consequentialists.
