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
Actually then only deliberate action, conduct into which reflective
choice enters, is distinctively moral, for only then does there enter
the question of better and worse. Yet it is a perilous error to draw a
hard and fast line between action into which deliberation and choice
enter and activity due to impulse and matter-of-fact habit. One of the
consequences of action is to involve us in predicaments where we have to
reflect upon things formerly done as matter of course. One of the chief
problems of our dealings with others is to induce them to reflect upon
affairs which they usually perform from unreflective habit. On the other
hand, every reflective choice tends to relegate some conscious issue
into a deed or habit henceforth taken for granted and not thought upon.
Potentially therefore every and any act is within the scope of morals,
being a candidate for possible judgment with respect to its
better-or-worse quality. It thus becomes one of the most perplexing
problems of reflection to discover just how far to carry it, what to
bring under examination and what to leave to unscrutinized habit.
Because there is no final recipe by which to decide this question all
moral judgment is experimental and subject to revision by its issue.
The recognition that conduct covers every act that is judged with
reference to better and worse and that the need of this judgment is
potentially coextensive with all portions of conduct, saves us from the
mistake which makes morality a separate department of life. Potentially
conduct is one hundred per cent of our acts. Hence we must decline to
admit theories which identify morals with the purification of motives,
edifying character, pursuing remote and elusive perfection, obeying
supernatural command, acknowledging the authority of duty. Such notions
have a dual bad effect. First they get in the way of observation of
conditions and consequences. They divert thought into side issues.
Secondly, while they confer a morbid exaggerated quality upon things
which are viewed under the aspect of morality, they release the larger
part of the acts of life from serious, that is moral, survey. Anxious
solicitude for the few acts which are deemed moral is accompanied by
edicts of exemption and baths of immunity for most acts. A moral
moratorium prevails for everyday affairs.
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