Outlines of a Critical Theory of EthicsDewey, John
Philosophy
Outlines of a Critical Theory of Ethics
Dewey, John
Ethics
The environment is not simply the facts which happen objectively to lie
about an agent; it is such part of the facts as may be _related_ to
the capacity and the disposition and gifts of the agent. Two members
of the same family may have what, to the outward eye, are exactly
the same surroundings, and yet each may draw from these surroundings
wholly unlike stimulus, material and motives. Each has a different
environment, made different by his own mode of selection; by the
different way in which his interests and desires play upon the plastic
material about him. It is not, then, the environment as physical of
which we are speaking, but as it appeals to consciousness, as it is
affected by the make-up of the agent. This is the _practical_ or
_moral_ environment. The environment is not, then, what is then and
there present in space. To the Christian martyr the sufferings of his
master, and the rewards of faithfulness to come to himself were more
real parts of his environment than the stake and fire. A Darwin or a
Wallace may find his environment in South America or the Philippine
Islands--or, indeed, in every fact of a certain sort wherever found
upon the earth or in whatever geological era. A man of philanthropic
instincts may find _his_ environment among Indians or Congo negroes.
Whatever, however near or remote in time and space, an individual's
capacities and needs relate him to, is his environment. The moment we
realize that only what one conceives as proper material for calling out
and expressing some internal capacity is a part of his surroundings,
we see not only that capacity depends upon environment, but that
environment depends upon capacity. In other words, we see that each in
itself is an abstraction, and that the real thing is the individual who
is constituted by capacity and environment in their relation to one
another.
_Function_ is a term which we may use to express union of the two sides
of individuality. The idea of function is that of an active relation
established between power of doing, on one side, and something to
be done on the other. To exercise a function as a student is not to
cultivate tastes and possibilities internally; it is also to meet
external demands, the demands of fact, of teachers, of others needing
knowledge. The citizen exercises his function not simply in cultivating
sentiments of patriotism within; one has to meet the needs of the
city, the country in which one lives. The realization of an artistic
function is not poring over emotions of beauty pumped up within one's
self; it is the exercise of some calling. On the other hand, it hardly
needs saying that the function of a student, a citizen, an artist, is
not exercised in bare conformity to certain external requirements.
Without the inner disposition and inclination, we call conduct dead,
perfunctory, hypocritical. An activity is not functional, unless it is
organic, expressing the life of the agent.
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