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
We recur to our fundamental propositions. Morals is connected with
actualities of existence, not with ideals, ends and obligations
independent of concrete actualities. The facts upon which it depends are
those which arise out of active connections of human beings with one
another, the consequences of their mutually intertwined activities in
the life of desire, belief, judgment, satisfaction and dissatisfaction.
In this sense conduct and hence morals are social: they are not just
things which _ought_ to be social and which fail to come up to the
scratch. But there are enormous differences of better and worse in the
quality of what is social. Ideal morals begin with the perception of
these differences. Human interaction and ties are there, are operative
in any case. But they can be regulated, employed in an orderly way for
good only as we know how to observe them. And they cannot be observed
aright, they cannot be understood and utilized, when the mind is left to
itself to work without the aid of science. For the natural unaided mind
means precisely the habits of belief, thought and desire which have been
accidentally generated and confirmed by social institutions or customs.
But with all their admixture of accident and reasonableness we have at
last reached a point where social conditions create a mind capable of
scientific outlook and inquiry. To foster and develop this spirit is the
social obligation of the present because it is its urgent need.
Yet the last word is not with obligation nor with the future. Infinite
relationships of man with his fellows and with nature already exist. The
ideal means, as we have seen, a sense of these encompassing continuities
with their infinite reach. This meaning even now attaches to present
activities because they are set in a whole to which they belong and
which belongs to them. Even in the midst of conflict, struggle and
defeat a consciousness is possible of the enduring and comprehending
whole.
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