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
If we turn from concrete effects upon character to theoretical issues,
we single out the discussion regarding freedom of will as typical of the
consequences that come from separating morals from human nature. Men are
wearied with bootless discussion, and anxious to dismiss it as a
metaphysical subtlety. But nevertheless it contains within itself the
most practical of all moral questions, the nature of freedom and the
means of its achieving. The separation of morals from human nature leads
to a separation of human nature in its moral aspects from the rest of
nature, and from ordinary social habits and endeavors which are found in
business, civic life, the run of companionships and recreations. These
things are thought of at most as places where moral notions need to be
applied, not as places where moral ideas are to be studied and moral
energies generated. In short, the severance of morals from human nature
ends by driving morals inwards from the public open out-of-doors air and
light of day into the obscurities and privacies of an inner life. The
significance of the traditional discussion of free will is that it
reflects precisely a separation of moral activity from nature and the
public life of men.
One has to turn from moral theories to the general human struggle for
political, economic and religious liberty, for freedom of thought,
speech, assemblage and creed, to find significant reality in the
conception of freedom of will. Then one finds himself out of the
stiflingly close atmosphere of an inner consciousness and in the
open-air world. The cost of confining moral freedom to an inner region
is the almost complete severance of ethics from politics and economics.
The former is regarded as summed up in edifying exhortations, and the
latter as connected with arts of expediency separated from larger issues
of good.
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