Outlines of a Critical Theory of EthicsDewey, John
Philosophy
Outlines of a Critical Theory of Ethics
Dewey, John
Ethics
We have treated of the forming of moral ideals, and of the attempt
to realize them against the counter attractions of sensible desire.
We have now to treat these ideas as actual ends of conduct and thus
reacting upon the agent. The good character, considered in relation
to the moral _struggle_, is the one which chooses the right end,
which endeavors to be better. The good character _in itself_ is that
made by this choice. It is good for the self to choose a due end in
an effort caused by contrary allurements. But the very fact of the
struggle witnesses that morality is not yet the natural and spontaneous
manifestation of character. A _wholly_ good man would feel such
satisfaction in the contemplation of the ideal good that contrary
desires would not affect him. He would take pleasure only in the
right. Every accomplished moral deed tends to bring this about. Moral
realization brings satisfaction. The satisfaction becomes one with the
right act. Duty and desire grow into harmony. Interest and virtue tend
toward unity.
This is the truth aimed at, but not attained, by the hedonistic school.
In complete moral action, happiness and rightness know no divorce. And
this is true, even though the act, in some of its aspects, involves
pain. The act, so far as its quality of rightness is concerned, calls
forth unalloyed satisfaction, however bound up with pain to self and to
others in some respects. The error of hedonism is not in insisting that
right action is pleasurable, but in its failure to supply content to
the idea of happiness, in its failure to define what happiness is. In
the failure to show those active relations of man to nature and to man
involved in human satisfaction, it reduces happiness to the abstraction
of agreeable sensation.
A virtue then, in the full sense, that is as the expression of virtuous
character, and not of the struggle of character to be virtuous
against the allurements of passive goods, is an _interest_. The
system of virtues includes the various forms which interest assumes.
Truthfulness, for example, is interest in the media of human exchange;
generosity is interest in sharing any form of superior endowment with
others less rich by nature or training, etc. It is distinguished
from natural generosity, which may be mere impulse, by its being an
interest in the activity or social relation itself, instead of in some
accidental accompaniment of the relation.
Another way of getting at the nature of the virtues is to consider
them as forms of freedom. Positive freedom is the good, it is realized
activity, the full and unhindered performance of function. A virtue
is any one aspect which the free performance of function may take.
Meekness is one form of the adjustment of capacity to surroundings;
honesty another; indignation another; scientific excellence another,
and so on. In each of these virtues, the agent realizes his freedom:
Freedom from subjection to caprice and blind appetite, freedom in the
full play of activity.
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