Outlines of a Critical Theory of EthicsDewey, John
Philosophy
Outlines of a Critical Theory of Ethics
Dewey, John
Ethics
Thus Alexander terms badness _a survival_, in part at
least, of former goodness. Hinton says (Philosophy and
Religion, p. 146), "That a thing is wrong does not mean
that it ought never to have been done or thought, but that
it ought to be left off". It will be noted that we are not
dealing with the metaphysical or the religious problem of
the nature and origin of evil, but simply with an account
of bad action as it appears in individual conduct.
Badness has four traits, all derivable from this basal fact. They are:
(1) Lawlessness, (2) Selfishness, (3) Baseness, (4) Demoralization.
1. _Lawlessness._ When desire and duty, that is, when desires based on
past having and on future acting, conflict, the bad man lets duty go.
He virtually denies that it is a good at all--it may be a good in the
abstract but not a good for him. He denies that obligation as such has
any value; that any end is to be consulted save his own state of mind.
He denies that there is law for conduct--at least any law beyond the
inclination which he happens to have at the time of action. Keeping
himself within that which has verified itself to his feeling in the
past, he abrogates all authority excepting that of his own immediate
feelings.
2. _Selfishness._ It has already been shown that the self is not
necessarily immoral, and hence that action for self is not necessarily
bad--indeed, that the true self is social and interest in it right (see
Sec. XXXV). But when a satisfaction based on past experience is set
against one proceeding from an act as meeting obligation, there grows
up a divorce in the self. The actual self, the self recognizing only
past and sensible satisfaction, is set over against the self which
recognizes the necessity of expansion and a wider environment. Since
the former self confines its action to benefits demonstrably accruing
to itself, while the latter, in meeting the demands of the situation,
necessarily contributes to the satisfaction of others, one takes the
form of a _private_ self, a self whose good is set over against and
exclusive of that of others, while the self recognizing obligation
becomes a social self--the self which performs its due function in
society. It is, again, the contrast between getting and doing.
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