It's true that pragmatism, as a philosophical orientation, is young; it's a 20th-century invention of the USA. Nonetheless it is only young because earlier phil

It's true that pragmatism, as a philosophical orientation, is young; it's a 20th-century invention of the USA. Nonetheless it is only young because earlier philosophy gave so much special consideration to humans; as soon as we want to consider non-human agents, then pragmatism is far simpler than god-given ensoulment when it comes to figuring out why humans do what they do. Also, by no measure should we simply pick up and embrace philosophy from 900-500 BCE without carefully examining it, and that includes all of the Abramic religions. We know how much of the old stories were not just mythic, but deliberately distorted in order to exaggerate the importance of various kingdoms in the Levant and justify military campaigns. Finally, if we only concentrate on intent, then we eventually arrive at thoughtcrime. But thoughtcrime is undetectable; we cannot build a society out of forbidding thoughcrime, and we can't even build a morality beyond "don't think the bad thoughts". From this angle, pragmatism is a clear and obvious upgrade which removes psychological baggage.