Outlines of a Critical Theory of Ethics

by John Dewey

It is obvious, then, that the value of a moral rule depends upon its potency in revealing the inner spirit and reality of individual deeds. Rules in the negative form, rules whose application is limited in scope because of an attempt to be specific, are midway between commands proper and rules. The Golden Rule, on the other hand, is positive, and not attempting to define any specific act, covers in its range all relations of man to man. It is indeed only a concrete and forcible statement of the ethical principle itself, the idea of a common good, or of a community of persons. This is also a convenient place for considering the practical value of ethical systems. We have already seen that no system can attempt to tell what in particular should be done. The principle of a system, however, may be of some aid in analyzing a specific case. In this way, a system may be regarded as a highly generalized rule. It attempts to state some fundamental principle which lies at the basis of moral conduct. So far as it succeeds in doing this, there is the possibility of its practical application in particular cases, although, of course, the mediate rules must continue to be the working tools of mankind—on account of their decided concrete character, and because they have themselves taken shape under the pressure of practice rather than of more theoretical needs.

LXV.

Development of Moral Ideals.

Thus far we have been speaking of conscience mainly as to its method of working. We have now to speak more definitely of its content, or of the development of ideals of action.

It is of the very nature of moral conduct to be progressive. Permanence of specific ideals means moral death. We say that truth-telling, charity, loyalty, temperance, have always been moral ends and while this is true, the statement as ordinarily made is apt to hide from us the fact that the content of the various ideals (what is meant by temperance, etc.) has been constantly changing, and this of necessity. The realization of moral ends must bring about a changed situation, so that the repetition of the same ends would no longer satisfy. This progress has two sides: the satisfaction of wants leads to a larger view of what satisfaction really is, i. e., to the creation of new capacities and wants; while adjustment to the environment creates wider and more complex social relationships.

Let the act be one of intelligence. Some new fact or law is discovered. On one hand, this discovery may arouse a hitherto comparatively dormant mind; it may suggest the possession of capacities previously latent; it may stimulate mental activity and create a thirst for expanding knowledge. This readjustment of intellectual needs and powers may be comparatively slight, or it may amount, as it has with many a young person, to a revolution. On the other hand, the new fact changes the intellectual outlook, the mental horizon, and, by transforming somewhat the relations of things, demands new conduct. All this, even when the growth of knowledge concerns only the physical world. But development of insight into social needs and affairs has a larger and more direct progressive influence. The social world exists spiritually, as conceived, and a new conception of it, new perception of its scope and bearings, is, perforce, a change of that world. And thus it is with the satisfaction of the human want of knowledge, that patience, courage, self-respect, humility, benevolence, all change character. When, for example, psychology has given an increase of knowledge regarding men's motives, political economy an increase of knowledge regarding men's wants, when historical knowledge has added its testimony regarding the effects of indiscriminate giving, charity must change its content. While once, the mere supplying of food or money by one to another may have been right as meeting the recognized relations, charity now comes to mean large responsibility in knowledge of antecedents and circumstances, need of organization, careful tracing of consequences, and, above all, effort to remove the conditions which made the want possible. The activity involved has infinitely widened.

Let the act be in the region of industrial life—a new invention. The invention of the telephone does not simply satisfy an old want—it creates new. It brings about the possibility of closer social relations, extends the distribution of intelligence, facilitates commerce. It is a common saying that the luxury of one generation is the necessity of the next; that is to say, what once satisfied a somewhat remote need becomes in time the basis upon which new needs grow up. Energy previously pent up is set free, new power and ideals are evoked. Consider again a person assuming a family relation. This seems, at first, to consist mainly in the satisfaction of certain common and obvious human wants. But this satisfaction, if moral, turns out rather to be the creation of new insight into life, of new relationships, and thus of new energies and ideals. We may generalize these instances. The secret of the moral life is not getting or having, it is doing and thus being. The getting and the possessing side of life has a moral value only when it is made the stimulus and nutriment of new and wider acting. To solve the equation between getting and doing is the moral problem of life. Let the possession be acquiesced in for its own sake, and not as the way to freer (and thus more moral) action, and the selfish life has set in (see Sec. [LXVII]). It is essential to moral activity that it feed itself into larger appetites and thus into larger life.

This must not be taken to deny that there is a mechanical side even to the moral life. A merchant, for example, may do the same thing over and over again, like going to his business every morning at the same hour. This is a moral act and yet it does not seem to lead to a change in moral wants or surroundings. Yet even in such cases it should be noted that it is only outwardly that the act is the same. In itself, that is, in its relation to the will of the agent, it is simply one element in the whole of character; and as character opens up, the act must change somewhat also. It is performed somehow in a new spirit. If this is not to some extent true, if such acts become wholly mechanical, the moral life is hardening into the rigidity of death.

This progressive development consists on one side in a richer and subtler individual activity, in increased individualization, in wider and freer functions of life; on the other it consists in increase in number of those persons whose ideal is a 'common good', or who have membership in the same moral community; and, further, it consists in more complex relations between them. It is both intensive and extensive.

History is one record of growth in the sense of specific powers. Its track is marked by the appearance of more and more internal and distinguishing traits; of new divisions of labor and corresponding freedom in functioning. It begins with groups in which everything is massed, and the good is common only in the sense of being undifferentiated for all. It progresses with the evolution of individuality, of the peculiar gifts entrusted to each, and hence of the specific service demanded of each.