Outlines of a Critical Theory of Ethics

by John Dewey

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.

We have attempted to show that the various interests are social in their very nature. We have not attempted to show that this can be seen or proved in any given case. On the contrary, in most, if not all cases, the agent acts from a faith that, in realizing his own capacity, he will satisfy the needs of society. If he were asked to prove that his devotion to his function were right because certain to promote social good, he might well reply: "That is none of my affair. I have only to work myself out as strength and opportunity are given me, and let the results take care of themselves. I did not make the world, and if it turns out that devotion to the capacity which was given me, and loyalty to the surroundings in which I find myself do not result in good, I do not hold myself responsible. But, after all, I cannot believe that it will so turn out. What is really good for me must turn out good for all, or else there is no good in the world at all." The basis, in a word, of moral conduct, with respect to the exercise of function, is a faith that moral self-satisfaction (that is, satisfaction in accordance with the performance of function as already defined) means social satisfaction—or the faith that self and others make a true community. Now such faith or conviction is at the basis of all moral conduct—not simply of the scientific or artistic. Interest in self must mean belief in one's business, conviction of its legitimacy and worth, even prior to any sensible demonstration. Under any circumstances, such demonstration can extend only to past action; the social efficiency of any new end must be a matter of faith. Where such faith is wanting, action becomes halting and character weak. Forcible action fails, and its place is taken by a feeble idealism, of vague longing for that which is not, or by a pessimistic and fruitless discontent with things as they are—leading, in either case, to neglect of actual and pressing duty. The basis of moral strength is limitation, the resolve to be one's self only, and to be loyal to the actual powers and surroundings of that self. The saying of Carlyle's about doing the "duty that lies nearest", and of Goethe's that "America is here or nowhere", both imply that faith in the existing moral capacity and environment is the basis of conduct. All fruitful and sound human endeavor roots in the conviction that there is something absolutely worth while, something 'divine' in the demands imposed by one's actual situation and powers. In the great moral heroes of the world the conviction of the worth of their destiny, and of what they were meant to do, has amounted to a kind of fatalism. They have done not simply what they could do, but what they must do.

On the other hand, effective social interest is based upon what is vaguely called 'faith in humanity', or, more specifically, belief in the value of each man's individuality, belief in some particular function which he might exercise, given appropriate conditions and stimuli. Moral interest in others must be an interest in their possibilities, rather than in their accomplishments; or, better, in their accomplishments so far as these testify to a fulfilling of function—to a working out of capacity. Sympathy and work for men which do not grow out of faith in them are a perfunctory and unfertile sort of thing.

This faith is generally analyzed no further; it is left as faith in one's 'calling' or in 'humanity'. But what is meant is just this: in the performing of such special service as each is capable of, there is to be found not only the satisfaction of self, but also the satisfaction of the entire moral order, the furthering of the community in which one lives. All moral conduct is based upon such a faith; and moral theory must recognize this as the postulate upon which it rests. In calling it a postulate, we do not mean that it is a postulate which our theory makes or must make in order to be a theory; but that, through analysis, theory finds that moral practice makes this postulate, and that with its reality the reality end value of conduct are bound up.

In calling it a postulate we do not mean to call it unprovable, much less unverifiable, for moral experience is itself, so far as it goes, its verification. But we mean that the further consideration of this postulate, its demonstration or (if the case so be) its refutation, do not belong to the realm of ethics as such. Each branch of human experience rests upon some presupposition which, for that branch, is ultimate. The further inquiry into such presuppositions belong not to mathematics, or physics, or ethics, but to metaphysics.

Unless, then, we are to extend our ethical theory to inquire into the possibility and value of moral experience, unless, that is, we are to make an excursion into the metaphysics of ethics, we have here reached our foundation. The ethical postulate, the presupposition involved in conduct, is this: