Outlines of a Critical Theory of EthicsDewey, John
Philosophy
Outlines of a Critical Theory of Ethics
Dewey, John
Ethics
As society advances, social interest must consist more and more in
free devotion to intelligence for its own sake, to science, art and
industry, and in rejoicing in the exercise of such freedom by others.
Meantime, it is truth which makes free.
See Spencer, Data of Ethics, pp. 249-257, where this
doctrine is stated with great force.
Where, finally, does the social character of science and art come
in? Just here: they are elements in the perfection of individuality,
and they are elements whose very nature is to be moving, not rigid;
distributed from one to another and not monopolistic possessions. If
there are forms of science and art which, at present, are static, being
merely owned collections of facts, as one may have a collection of
butterflies in a frame, or of etchings in a closed portfolio, this is
not because they are science and art, but imperfect science and art.
To complete their scientific and artistic character is to set these
facts in motion; to hurl them against the world of physical forces
till new instruments of man's activity are formed, and to set them in
circulation so that others may also participate in their truth and
rejoice in their beauty. So far as scientific or artistic attainments
are treasured as individual possessions, so far it _is_ true that
they are not social--but so far it is _also_ true that they are
immoral: indeed that they are not fully scientific or artistic, being
subordinated to having certain sensations.
The intellectual movement of the last four or five centuries has
resulted in an infinite specialization in methods, and in an immense
accumulation of fact. It is quite true, since the diversity of fact
and of method has not yet been brought to an organic unity, that their
social bearing is not yet realized. But when the unity is attained (as
attained it must be if there is unity in the object of knowledge), it
will pass into a corresponding unity of practice. And then the question
as to the social character of even the most specialized knowledge will
seem absurd. It will be to ask whether men can coöperate better when
they do not know than when they do know what they want. Meantime the
intellectual confusion, and the resulting divorce of knowledge from
practice, exists. But this constitutes a part of the environment of
which action must take heed. It makes it one of the pressing duties
that every man of intelligence should do his part in bringing out the
public and common aspects of knowledge. _The_ duty of the present is
the socializing of intelligence--the realizing of its bearing upon
social practice.
XL.
The Ethical Postulate.
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