you're probably not going to be too sympathetic to the example i'm going to use, but i want to say that the pragmatic theory of truth, and also the idea that truth is a social artifact produced by convention or agreement (rorty: 'truth is what your contemporaries let you get away with saying') is just wrong. their negations would be nearer the mark. ok sexual orientation is not a matter of choice. now note: i am not declaring that to be false. i am declaring that the enforced social consensus about it should make you suspect that it is. the proponents of such a view believe that its acceptance would have excellent political results. here's a very clear way to see what's wrong with pragmatism: the political results are irrelevant to the truth of claim, and they yield a motivation for purveying the view that is disconnected from its truth. this is obvious. whether sexual orientation is imprinted on your genes: the evidence on that has to do with genes etc: a happy polity is neither here nor there. believing it might help you toward self-acceptance; well that's obviously completely irrelevant to the truth of the claim.
if a factual claim is being insisted on by people for whom the truth of the claim would produce desired political results, you should immediately provisionally assume that the way the opinion was generated had to do with those desired results and not with the evidence for the claim. for example: paul krugman says that austerity has demonstrably failed. and science is a social world as well as a quest for truth, and as the matter linked above shows, one that is fully capable of pressuring people into expressing agreement about factual matters for completely irrelevant political reasons.
i think along these lines you should suspect scientists just like anyone else; they too are immensely subject to the social enforcement of ignorance. think seriously for a second about the actual social consequences spitzer faced for his position. after the gantlet of beatings and ostracisms, anything he says should be viewed as likely to be mere capitulation.
one reason this is a good illustration is that the whole politics and self-esteem-enhancing aspects of the position could easily reverse valence. so once we get some tiny way beyond the stigma, perhaps people would like to regard their selves as things that they had themselves a hand in creating. 'it's not my fault!' might give way to a pride that could happily take some responsibility. whatshisname on glee: "i'm gay; i create culture." but only because you absolutely can't help yourself? once the choice would not be regarded as evil or defective, you might be happy to have made it. after awhile, "i'm sorry, i can't help being black,' would itself be regarded as a projection of racism, as this thing is of homophobia.
i actually think that the way people arrive at a sexual identity is immensely complex: a course of genetic elements, social situations, contingent events, individual decisions and so on. but the point here is: whatever evidence there is for the present consensus position, it is thoroughly socially and pragmatically useful or essential according to its proponents. that's why the evidence is very likely to be distorted. the social situation is such that an honest attempt to find the truth is unlikely for anyone.
truth is what your contemporaries will hang you for saying. truth is what does not work in the way of belief. ok those are not adequate theories of truth. but they're better than rorty's.
