Pragmatism is the belief that behaviour should be shaped in accordance with practical circumstances and goals rather than principles, beliefs or ideological objectives.

Traditional conservatives have undoubtedly favoured pragmatism over principle. The basis for this position is the belief that human beings are intellectually limited. The world is simply too complicated for human reason to fully grasp, hence the belief that the political world is ‘boundless and bottomless’. Traditional conservatives are therefore suspicious of abstract ideas and systems of thought that claim to understand what is simply incomprehensible. They prefer to ground their ideas in tradition, experience and history, adopting a cautious, moderate and above all pragmatic approach to the world, and avoiding, if at all possible, doctrinaire or dogmatic beliefs. Principles such as ‘rights of man’, ‘equality’ and ‘social justice’ are fraught with danger because they provide a blueprint for the reform or remodelling of the world, and all such blueprints are unreliable. Pragmatism thus ensures that ‘the cure is not worse than the disease’.

This emphasis on pragmatism can be illustrated by the development of the One Nation tradition. As deepening social inequality contains the seeds of revolution, conservatives came to recognise that prudent social reform was the best protection against the danger of popular insurrection. A pragmatic concern to alleviate poverty is therefore in the interests of the rich and prosperous.

However, the rise of the liberal New Right challenges this emphasis on pragmatism. The liberal New Right adopts a principled belief in economic liberty and the free market, borne out of a commitment to economic liberalism and thus a rationally-based approach to politics. This, in turn, significantly altered the conservative approach to change, New Right conservatives being much