Ethics

by John Dewey; James Hayden Tufts

(ii.) The erection of the "benevolent" impulse into a virtue in and of itself tends to build up egoism in others. The child who finds himself unremittingly the object of attention from others is likely to develop an exaggerated sense of the relative importance of his own ego. The chronic invalid, conspicuously the recipient of the conscious altruism of others, is happy in nature who avoids the slow growth of an insidious egoism. Men who are the constant subjects of abnegation on the part of their wives and female relatives rarely fail to develop a self-absorbed complacency and unconscious conceit.

(iii.) Undue emphasis upon altruism as a motive is quite likely to react to form a peculiarly subtle egoism in the person who cultivates it. Others cease to be natural objects of interest and regard, and are converted into excuses for the manifestation and nurture of one's own generous goodness. Underlying complacency with respect to social ills grows up because they afford an opportunity for developing and displaying this finest of virtues. In our interest in the maintenance of our own benign altruism we cease to be properly disturbed by conditions which are intrinsically unjust and hateful.[180] (iv.) As present circumstances amply demonstrate, there is the danger that the erection of benevolence into a conscious principle in some things will serve to supply rich persons with a cloak for selfishness in other directions. Philanthropy is made an offset and compensation for brutal exploitation. A man who pushes to the breaking-point of legality aggressively selfish efforts to get ahead of others in business, squares it in his own self-respect and in the esteem of those classes of the community who entertain like conceptions, by gifts of hospitals, colleges, missions, and libraries.

Genuine and False Altruism.—These considerations may be met by the obvious retort that it is not true altruism, genuine benevolence, sincere charity, which we are concerned with in such cases. This is a true remark. We are not of course criticizing true but spurious interest in others. But why is it counterfeit? What is the nature of the genuine article? The danger is not in benevolence or altruism, but in that conception of them which makes them equivalent to regard for others as others, irrespective of a social situation to which all alike belong. There is nothing in the selfhood of others, because they are others, which gives it any supremacy over selfhood in oneself. Just as it is exclusiveness of objective ends, the ignoring of relations, which is objectionable in selfishness, so it is taking the part for the whole which is obnoxious in so-called altruism. To include in our view of consequences the needs and possibilities of others on the same basis as our own, is to take the only course which will give an adequate view of the situation. There is no situation into which these factors do not enter. To have a generous view of others is to have a larger world in which to act. To remember that they, like ourselves, are persons, are individuals who are centers of joy and suffering, of lack and of potentiality, is alone to have a just view of the conditions and issues of behavior. Quickened sympathy means liberality of intelligence and enlightened understanding.

The Social Sense versus Altruism.—There is a great difference in principle between modern philanthropy and the "charity" which assumes a superior and an inferior class. The latter principle tries to acquire merit by employing one's superior resources to lessen, or to mitigate, the misery of those who are fixed in a dependent status. Its principle, so far as others are concerned, is negative and palliative merely. The motive of what is vital in modern philanthropy is constructive and expansive because it looks to the well-being of society as a whole, not to soothing or rendering more tolerable the conditions of a class. It realizes the interdependence of interests: that complex and variegated interaction of conditions which makes it impossible for any one individual or "class" really to secure, to assure, its own good as a separate thing. Its aim is general social advance, constructive social reform, not merely doing something kind for individuals who are rendered helpless from sickness or poverty. Its aim is the equity of justice, not the inequality of conferring benefits. That the sight of the misery that comes from sickness, from insanity, from defective organic structure (as among the blind and deaf), from poverty that destroys hope and dulls initiative, from bad nutrition, should stimulate this general quickening of the social sense is natural. But just as the activities of the parent with reference to the welfare of a helpless infant are wisely directed in the degree in which attention is mainly fixed not upon weakness, but upon positive opportunities for growth, so the efforts of those whose activities, by the nature of circumstances, have to be especially remedial and palliative are most effective when centered on the social rights and possibilities of the unfortunate individuals, instead of treating them as separate individuals to whom, in their separateness, "good is to be done."

The best kind of help to others, whenever possible, is indirect, and consists in such modifications of the conditions of life, of the general level of subsistence, as enables them independently to help themselves.[181] Whenever conditions require purely direct and personal aid, it is best given when it proceeds from a natural social relationship, and not from a motive of "benevolence" as a separate force.[182] The gift that pauperizes when proceeding from a philanthropist in his special capacity, is a beneficent acknowledgment of the relationships of the case when it comes from a neighbor or from one who has other interests in common with the one assisted.

The Private and the Social Self.—The contrast between the narrow or restrictive and the general or expansive good explains why evil presents itself as a selfish end in contrast with an authoritative, but faint, good of others. This is not, as we have seen, because regard for the good of self is inherently bad and regard for that of others intrinsically right; but because we are apt to identify the self with the habitual, with that to which we are best adjusted and which represents the customary occupation. Any moral crisis is thus fairly pictured as a struggle to overcome selfishness. The tendency under such circumstances is to contract, to secrete, to hang on to what is already achieved and possessed. The habitual self needs to go out of the narrowness of its accustomed grooves into the spacious air of more generous behavior.

§ 4. THE GOOD AS SELF-REALIZATION

We now come to the theory which attempts to do justice to the one-sided truths we have been engaged with, viz., the idea that the moral end is self-realization. Like self-assertion in some respects, it differs in conceiving the self to be realized as universal and ultimate, involving the fulfillment of all capacities and the observance of all relations. Such a comprehensive self-realization includes also, it is urged, the truth of altruism, since the "universal self" is realized only when the relations that bind one to others are fulfilled. It avoids also the inconsistencies and defects of the notion of self-sacrifice for its own sake, while emphasizing that the present incomplete self must be denied for the sake of attainment of a more complete and final self. A discussion of this theory accordingly furnishes the means of gathering together and summarizing various points regarding the rôle of the self in the moral life.

Ambiguity in the Conception.—Is self-realization the end? As we have had such frequent occasion to observe, "end" means either the consequences actually effected, the closing and completing phase of an act, or the aim held deliberately in view. Now realization of self is an end (though not the only end) in the former sense. Every moral act in its outcome marks a development or fulfillment of selfhood. But the very nature of right action forbids that the self should be the end in the sense of being the conscious aim of moral activity. For there is no way of discovering the nature of the self except in terms of objective ends which fulfill its capacities, and there is no way of realizing the self except as it is forgotten in devotion to these objective ends.

1. Self-Realization as Consequence of Moral Action.—Every good act realizes the selfhood of the agent who performs it; every bad act tends to the lowering or destruction of selfhood. This truth is expressed in Kant's maxim that every personality should be regarded as always an end, never as a means, with its implication that a wrong intent always reduces selfhood to the status of a mere tool or device for securing some end beyond itself—the self-indulgent man treating his personal powers as mere means to securing ease, comfort, or pleasure. It is expressed by ordinary moral judgment in its view that all immoral action is a sort of prostitution, a lowering of the dignity of the self to base ends. The destructive tendency of evil deeds is witnessed also by our common language in its conception of wrong as dissipation, dissoluteness, duplicity. The bad character is one which is shaky, empty, "naughty," unstable, gone to pieces, just as the good man is straight, solid, four-square, sound, substantial. This conviction that at bottom and in the end, in spite of all temporary appearance to the contrary, the right act effects a realization of the self, is also evidenced in the common belief that virtue brings its own bliss. No matter how much suffering from physical loss or from material and mental inconvenience or loss of social repute virtue may bring with it, the quality of happiness that accompanies devotion to the right end is so unique, so invaluable, that pains and discomforts do not weigh in the balance. It is indeed possible to state this truth in such an exaggerated perspective that it becomes false; but taken just for what it is, it acknowledges that whatever harm or loss a right act may bring to the self in some of its aspects,—even extending to destruction of the bodily self,—the inmost moral self finds fulfillment and consequent happiness in the good.