Outlines of a Critical Theory of EthicsDewey, John
Philosophy
Outlines of a Critical Theory of Ethics
Dewey, John
Ethics
More than this: A certain amount of intelligence, and a certain amount
of susceptibility to embodied ideals, _must_ exist to give moral
conduct. A moral end is, as we have seen, always a _conception_, an
idea. The very act of bringing conduct out of the impulsive into the
moral sphere, depends upon the development of intelligence so as to
transform a feeling into the perception of a situation. And, as we
watch moral development from childhood to maturity, is it not evident
that progress consists in power to conceive of larger and better
defined ends? to analyze the situation which demands active response,
the function which needs exercise, into specific relations, instead of
taking it partially or even upon some one else's say so? Conduct, so
far as not based upon an intelligent recognition and realization of the
relationships involved, is either sentimental, or _merely_ habitual--in
the former case immoral, and in the latter failing of the complete
morality possible.
If the necessary part played in conduct by artistic cultivation is not
so plain, it is largely because 'Art' has been made such an unreal
Fetich--a sort of superfine and extraneous polish to be acquired only
by specially cultivated people. In reality, living is itself the
supreme art; it requires fineness of touch; skill and thoroughness
of workmanship; susceptible response and delicate adjustment to a
situation apart from reflective analysis; instinctive perception of
the proper harmonies of act and act, of man and man. Active art is the
embodiment of ideals; the clothing of ideas otherwise abstract in their
peculiar and fit garb of concrete outward detail; passive art is the
quick and accurate response to such embodiments as are already made.
What were human conduct without the one and the other?
Granting the necessity of knowledge and of its artistic application
in conduct, the question arises as to where the line is to be drawn.
Evidently, if anywhere, at specialisms, remote philosophic or
mathematical endeavors; life-times spent in inventive attempts without
appreciable outcome. But to draw the line is not easy. The remote of
one generation is the social tool of the next; the abstract mathematics
and physics of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are the great
social forces of the nineteenth--the locomotive, the telegraph,
the telephone, etc. And how, in any case, can we tell a scientific
investigator that up to a certain experiment or calculation his work
may be social, beyond that, not? All that we can say is that beyond a
certain point its social character is not obvious to sense and that
the work must be carried on by faith.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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