Thank you for reporting about this speech. I consider Rorty's message to expand toward inclusion of those who culturally differ within the context of his Ethics Without Principles.   An excerpt:

Pragmatists do not think of scientific, or any other inquiry, as aimed at truth, but rather at better justificatory ability--better to deal with doubts about what we are saying, either by shoring up what we have previously said or by deciding to say something different. The trouble with aiming at truth is that you would not know when you had reached it, even if you had in fact reached it. But you can aim at ever more justification, the assuagement of ever more doubt. Analogously, you cannot aim at 'doing what is right', because you will never know whether you have hit the mark. Long after you are dead, better informed and more sophisticated people may judge your action to have been a tragic mistake, just as they may judge your scientific beliefs as intelligible only by reference to an obsolete paradigm. 

 But you can aim at ever more sensitivity to pain, and ever greater satisfaction of ever more various needs. Pragmatists think that the idea of something nonhuman luring us human beings on should be replaced with the idea of getting more and more human beings into our community--of taking the needs and interests and views of more and more diverse human beings into account. Justificatory ability is its own reward. There is no need to worry about whether we will also be rewarded with a sort of immaterial medal labelled 'Truth' or 'Moral Goodness'.

As a Catholic progressive, I see a kind of social humility in that. Rorty was good to warn us about getting addicted to theories and systems.  He challenged us to free up and to open up our conversations with those who culturally differ, seeing us all as persons of equal worth, searching for workable solidarities on common ground.

Thanks for that.  I've always considered pragmatism to be both defeatist and self-congratulatory - if the end of human inquiry is something less than truth, or if truth is nothing more than a kind of consensus (to be overly broad), getting it seems both harder and easier than it really is.  I haven't read much Rorty since I was an undergrad, and my staunchly chauvinistic graduate indoctrination left little room to read more.  But this cogent passage reminds me that I know far too little about Rorty and his place in logical space to criticize.

TSH's view of Rorty is easy to find, and hard to understand. Rorty was certainly not "against" Moral Goodness. Read Achieving Our Country -- he was certainly pushing for moral ideas such as helping the downtrodden, and, as Jo-Ann's post discusses, for many other progressive ideas.

What he was against is the idea that there is a truth outside of the human world that we describe by intellectual efforts. This does not lead to utter relativism, but an understanding that truth is merely a description of a successful argument within the bounds of a specific discourse or discipline. It is not something apart that has a separate character and value in and of itself.

And the world without this idea would not be a horrible place ("far from sweet" as you say), but one where intellectual inquiry was more understanding and self-aware.

Don't take my word for it -- read one of his books (in case you have not already), and then I'd love to hear what you think.

 You might be interested in Last Words from Richard Rorty over at The Progressive.