Human Nature and Conduct: An introduction to social psychologyDewey, John
Philosophy
Human Nature and Conduct: An introduction to social psychology
Dewey, John
Habit; Social psychology
Hence there is reasonable and unreasonable choice. The object thought of
may simply stimulate some impulse or habit to a pitch of intensity where
it is temporarily irresistible. It then overrides all competitors and
secures for itself the sole right of way. The object looms large in
imagination; it swells to fill the field. It allows no room for
alternatives; it absorbs us, enraptures us, carries us away, sweeps us
off our feet by its own attractive force. Then choice is arbitrary,
unreasonable. But the object thought of may be one which stimulates by
unifying, harmonizing, different competing tendencies. It may release an
activity in which all are fulfilled, not indeed, in their original form,
but in a "sublimated" fashion, that is in a way which modifies the
original direction of each by reducing it to a component along with
others in an action of transformed quality. Nothing is more
extraordinary than the delicacy, promptness and ingenuity with which
deliberation is capable of making eliminations and recombinations in
projecting the course of a possible activity. To every shade of imagined
circumstance there is a vibrating response; and to every complex
situation a sensitiveness as to its integrity, a feeling of whether it
does justice to all facts, or overrides some to the advantage of others.
Decision is reasonable when deliberation is so conducted. There may be
error in the result, but it comes from lack of data not from ineptitude
in handling them.
These facts give us the key to the old controversy as to the respective
places of desire and reason in conduct. It is notorious that some
moralists have deplored the influence of desire; they have found the
heart of strife between good and evil in the conflict of desire with
reason, in which the former has force on its side and the latter
authority. But reasonableness is in fact a quality of an effective
relationship among desires rather than a thing opposed to desire. It
signifies the order, perspective, proportion which is achieved, during
deliberation, out of a diversity of earlier incompatible preferences.
Choice is reasonable when it induces us to act reasonably; that is, with
regard to the claims of each of the competing habits and impulses. This
implies, of course, the presence of a comprehensive object, one which
coordinates, organizes and functions each factor of the situation which
gave rise to conflict, suspense and deliberation. This is as true when
some "bad" impulses and habits enter in as when approved ones require
unification. We have already seen the effects of choking them off, of
efforts at direct suppression. Bad habits can be subdued only by being
utilized as elements in a new, more generous and comprehensive scheme of
action, and good ones be preserved from rot only by similar use.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account