PRAGMATIC OR PRINCIPLED?
Being pragmatic means that you will do those things that suit you the best on a certain moment. Pragmatism is opposed to being principled. Being principled means that you have set out certain unbendable rules for yourself and for your interaction with others, and that you keep to these rules.
William James*
There are reformed Christians who hold the principle that you may not work on sundays. This is a principle. Suppose that the neighbor would ask you on a sunday to help him repair his leaking conduit-pipe, this could be explained as work, and there are principled reformed Christians what would not go help the neighbor to fix a leaking conduit-pipe, on a sunday. The work should be postponed to monday, and then the work can be done. This is a good example of being principled.
Paul Goodman*
An advantage of a pragmatic sense of life is that you can always do what you think is best. A pragmatic Christian could think that it would be kind to help the neighbor with the leaking conduit-pipe, and maybe think that on that moment this is of more importance that the rule of not working on sundays.
A lot of people (not unfortunately) have the principle that you may not steal. Suppose that you see something in the shop that you want to have, or maybe you need it for something, but you don't have enough money to buy it. If you are principled you will not steal it, because stealing is wrong and not according to your principles. But as a pragmatist you could choose to steal it anyways, because on this moment this is what suits you best.
Charles Peirce*
Of course Neo-Buddhism holds that your Karma, and in particular your conscience, are reasons not to steal. So a wise pragmatist would not steal anyways. On the short term the theft might suit your purposes, but on the long run you will feel bad about it and this would effect your happiness negatively. So on the long term, there are pragmatic reasons not to steal. On the long term, not stealing suits you best.
So the difference is that the principled man will not steal ever, because it is against his principles. The wise pragmatist will not steal, because on the long term, this is best for his happiness, as well as the happiness of others. But the pragmatist always has a choice, and could weight several arguments on deciding what to do. If you would die unless you would steal a bread at the bakery, as a principled man you would not do it and die. As a pragmatist you would steal the bread, feel bad for the shop owner, but nevertheless survived.
W. V. Quine*
A disadvantage of pragmatism is that not everyone is wise. You should be constantly aware when you make choices, what the consequences are, and what that would mean for your Karma. If you are driven by impulse, you could easily make a wrong decision in weighting all the arguments, do the wrong thing, and feel sorry for it later.
Therefor it is wise to have certain guidelines to live by, not as dogmatic principles, but as guidelines to decide quickly when not given enough time what you should do and what you shouldn't do in live. The whole of these guidelines is known in Buddhism as Dharma.
A simple example is people who phone you at your home to sell you something. My guideline is to state that I'm not interested, and wish the person on the other side of the line a pleasant continuation of the evening. This will result in an end to the conversation, which is a relieve. But, being a pragmatist, I always have the option to respond differently if the person calling says something that might be really interesting.
In short I would say that if you are principled, you are limiting yourself needlessly with unbendable, dogmatic rules. It is not possible to be principled, and that the principles at the same time would be bendable. If the principles are bendable, they are only guidelines, and the choice to bend them would be pragmatic. So someone who claims to be principled, but has bendable principles, in fact is not principled at all - but pragmatic. But being pragmatic he lives up to certain guidelines. So by definition a really principled person is dogmatic. His rules are unbendable and strict.
Pragmatism is a wise sense of life, in which you can give yourself the freedom at every moment to choose the best thing. The guidelines of the Dharma are there to help us make these decisions.
*pragmatic philosophers