Unpopular opinion: Palpatine isn't quite pargmatic. I mean, he is very intelligent and calculative, but his galaxy-sized ego prevents him from being a magnificent bastard. Also, the moment when he kicked Darth Vader while the latter was down and provoked him into helping Luke against him showed us all that Palpatine was his own worst enemy all along.

He is very pragmatic he hated Vader killing his subordinates for the smallest of things and he wanted his subordinates the inquisitors to do there job in slaying Jedi he didn’t want Vader to do it because he knew he would still all the kills he basically wanted everything to run in order and he betrayed Vader because he knew if Luke turned to the dark side he would be stronger than Vader So hes definitely pragmatic