Since you raise the question in terms of what makes sense, I think you are looking for a meaning theory as opposed to an ethical theory. Pragmatist theories of meaning are those which derive meaning from the consequences or commitments of assertions. Those consequences and commitments can themselves be linguistic (in which case they are inferential commitments) or can be commitments to non-linguistic actions. Meaning is constituted by these.
Michael Dummett first identified the possibility of a pragmatic theory of meaning in his paper 'Truth and Meaning'. He contrasts the theory against a verificationist theory of meaning, a theory which derives meaning from what would be required to justify an assertion. The two are actually compatible, as long as they are in harmony in terms of the meanings that each one determines. Harmony is a desideratum of such theories.
The problem with verificationist theories of meaning as they existed in positivism and operationalism was that they were inherently reductionist - verification was taken to be reducible to sensory or scientific terminology (what Carnap called 'protocol statements'), and such reduction is now thought impossible. More recent verificationist theories of meaning make no such attempt at reduction but define verifications in broader epistemological terms.
Carnap et. al. wanted to show that metaphysical statements, like the ones about free will, are meaningless because they are unverifiable. The more recent verificationist and pragmatist theories explored by Dummett et. al. are inherently antirealist, Dummett argues, because they make truth dependent upon an act of verification or on the outcomes of assertions, i.e. dependent on human knowledge. Metaphysics now turns out to be a consequence of the theory of meaning, not meaningless. Dummett argues this at length in his brilliant book The Logical Basis of Metaphysics.
In favour of pragmatist and verificationist theories of meaning, Dummett argues that other theories which make truth independent of human knowledge cannot explain what knowledge of language (and meaning) consists in. Against them, their antirealism suggests that the past is only as real as the imprints it leaves upon present observers and language users. Both positions are extremely problematic.
Pragmatist theories of meaning are not to be confused with pragmatist theories of truth such as those proposed by William James and Richard Rorty.
