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
exercised in a different environment from that in which they were
formed. The assumption of a stably uniform environment (even the
hankering for one) expresses a fiction due to attachment to old habits.
The utilitarian theory of equation of acts with consequences is as much
a fiction of self-conceit as is the assumption of a fixed transcendental
world wherein moral ideals are eternally and immutably real. Both of
them deny in effect the relevancy of time, of change, to morals, while
time is of the essence of the moral struggle.
We thus come, by an unexpected path, upon the old question of the
objectivity or subjectivity of morals. Primarily they are objective. For
will, as we have seen, means, in the concrete, habits; and habits
incorporate an environment within themselves. They are adjustments _of_
the environment, not merely _to_ it. At the same time, the environment
is many, not one; hence will, disposition, is plural. Diversity does not
of itself imply conflict, but it implies the possibility of conflict,
and this possibility is realized in fact. Life, for example, involves
the habit of eating, which in turn involves a unification of organism
and nature. But nevertheless this habit comes into conflict with other
habits which are also "objective," or in equilibrium with _their_
environments. Because the environment is not all of one piece, man's
house is divided within itself, against itself. Honor or consideration
for others or courtesy conflict with hunger. Then the notion of the
complete objectivity of morals gets a shock. Those who wish to maintain
the idea unimpaired take the road which leads to transcendentalism. The
empirical world, they say, is indeed divided, and hence any natural
morality must be in conflict with itself. This self-contradiction
however only points to a higher fixed reality with which a true and
superior morality is alone concerned. Objectivity is saved but at the
expense of connection with human affairs. Our problem is to see what
objectivity signifies upon a naturalistic basis; how morals are
objective and yet secular and social. Then we may be able to decide in
what crisis of experience morals become legitimately dependent upon
character or self--that is, "subjective."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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