Outlines of a Critical Theory of Ethics

by John Dewey

Criticism of the Kantian Theory.

1. No one can deny that a genuine opposition exists between the 'natural' desires and moral activity. The being that satisfies each desire or appetite as it arises, without reference of it to, or control of it by, some principle, has not had the horizon of conduct lift before him. But Kant makes the satisfaction of desire as such (not of this or that desire) antagonistic to action from duty. Kant was forced into this position by his fundamental division of sense from reason, but it carries with it its own condemnation and thus that of the premises from which it is derived. It comes to saying that the actual desires and appetites are not what they ought to be. This, in itself, is true enough. But when Kant goes on to say, as he virtually does, that what ought to be cannot be, that the desires as such cannot be brought into harmony with principle, he has made the moral life not only a riddle, but a riddle with no answer. If mankind were once convinced that the moral ideal were something which ought to be but which could not be, we may easily imagine how much longer moral endeavor would continue. The first or immediate stimulus to moral effort is the conviction that the desires and appetites are not what they should be; the underlying and continuing stimulus is the conviction that the expression of desires in harmony with law is the sole abiding good of man. To reconcile the two is the very meaning of the moral struggle (see Sec. [LXIV]). Strictly, according to Kant, morality would either leave the appetites untouched or would abolish them—in either case destroying morality.

See Caird, Op. cit., Vol. II, pp. 226-28.

2. Kant again seems to be on the right track in declaring that obligation is not anything externally imposed, but is the law of man's being, self-imposed. This principle of 'autonomy' is the only escape from a theory of obligation which would make obligation external, and regard for it slavish fear, or servile hope of reward. To regard even a Divine Being as the author of obligation is to make it a form of external constraint, appealing only to hope or fear, unless this Divine Being is shown to be organically connected with self.

But this abstract universal reason which somehow dwells, without mediation or reason, in each individual, seems to be somewhat scholastic, a trifle mythological. There is undoubtedly in man's experience a function which corresponds to what Kant is aiming, thus mythologically, to describe. But it is one thing to recognize an opposition of a desire, in its isolation, to desire as organic to the function of the whole man; it is another to split man into a blank dualism of an abstract reason, on one side, having no antecedents or bearings, and of a mess of appetites, having only animal relationship, on the other. The truth that Kant is aiming to preserve seems to be fairly stated as two-fold: first, that duty is self-imposed, and thus the dutiful will autonomous or free; and, second, the presence of struggle in man between a 'lower' and a 'higher'. The first point seems to be sufficiently met by the idea already advanced that self, or individuality, is essentially social, being constituted not by isolated capacity, but by capacity acting in response to the needs of an environment—an environment which, when taken in its fullness, is a community of persons. Any law imposed by such a self would be 'universal', but this universality would not be an isolated possession of the individual; it would be another name for the concrete social relationships which make the individual what he is, as a social member or organ. Furthermore, such a universal law would not be formal, but would have a content—these same relationships.

The second point seems to be met by recognizing that in the realization of the law of social function, conflict must occur between the desire as an immediate and direct expression of the individual—the desire in its isolation—and desire as an expression of the whole man; desire, that is, as wholly conformable to the needs of the surroundings. Such a conflict is real enough, as everyone's experience will testify, but it is a conflict which may be solved—which must be solved so far as morality is attained. And since it is a conflict within desire itself, its solution or morality, does not require any impossible obliteration of desire, nor any acting from an 'ought' which has no relation to what 'is'. This, indeed, is the failure of the Kantian Ethics: in separating what should be from what is, it deprives the latter, the existing social world as well as the desires of the individual, of all moral value; while, by the same separation, it condemns that which should be to a barren abstraction. An 'ought' which does not root in and flower from the 'is', which is not the fuller realization of the actual state of social relationships, is a mere pious wish that things should be better. And morality, that is, right action, is not so feeble as this would come to.

XLVIII.

The Source and Nature of Obligation.

The basis of a correct theory of obligation lies, as already stated, in holding fast to its concrete relations to the moral end, or good. This end consists in an activity in which capacity is exercised in accordance with surroundings, with the social needs which affect the individual. It is implied in this very idea, that the end is not something which the individual may set up at his own arbitrary will. The social needs give control, law, authority. The individual may not manifest his capacity, satisfy his desires, apart from their specific relation to the environment in which they exist. The general fact of obligation which is constituted through this control of capacity by the wider function is, of course, differentiated into specific 'laws' or duties by the various forms which the one function takes, as capacity and circumstances vary.

In other words, obligation or duty is simply the aspect which the good or the moral end assumes, as the individual conceives of it. From the very fact that the end is the good, and yet is not realized by the individual, it presents itself to him as that which should be realized—as the ideal of action. It requires no further argument to show that obligation is at once self-imposed, and social in its content. It is self-imposed because it flows from the good, from the idea of the full activity of the individual's own will. It is no law imposed from without; but is his own law, the law of his own function, of his individuality. Its social content flows from the fact that this individuality is not mere capacity, but is this capacity acting, and acting so as to comprehend social relationships.