E-text prepared by Adrian Mastronardi and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org) Note: Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See http://archive.org/details/ethicsdew00deweuoft Transcriber's note: Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). Text enclosed by equal signs is in bold face (=bold=). To indicate macron above a vowel, the vowel has been enclosed within square brackets with equal sign just before it. For example, [=o] is used to represent letter "o" with macron above it. American Science Series ETHICS by JOHN DEWEY Professor of Philosophy in Columbia University and JAMES H. TUFTS Professor of Philosophy in the University of Chicago [Illustration] New York Henry Holt and Company London: George Bell and Sons 1909 Copyright, 1908, by Henry Holt and Company PREFACE The significance of this text in Ethics lies in its effort to awaken a vital conviction of the genuine reality of moral problems and the value of reflective thought in dealing with them. To this purpose are subordinated the presentation in Part I. of historic material; the discussion in Part II. of the different types of theoretical interpretation, and the consideration, in Part III., of some typical social and economic problems which characterize the present. Experience shows that the student of morals has difficulty in getting the field objectively and definitely before him so that its problems strike him as real problems. Conduct is so intimate that it is not easy to analyze. It is so important that to a large extent the perspective for regarding it has been unconsciously fixed by early training. The historical method of approach has proved in the classroom experience of the authors an effective method of meeting these difficulties. To follow the moral life through typical epochs of its development enables students to realize what is involved in their own habitual standpoints; it also presents a concrete body of subject-matter which serves as material of analysis and discussion.