Outlines of a Critical Theory of Ethics

by John Dewey

LXVII.

Moral Badness.

Badness originates in the contrast which thus comes about between having the repetition of former action, and doing—pressing forward to the new right action. Goodness is the choice of doing; the refusal to be content with past good as exhausting the entire content of goodness. It is, says Green, 'in the continued effort to be better that goodness consists'. The man, however bad his past and however limited his range of intellectual, æsthetic and social activity, who is dissatisfied with his past, and whose dissatisfaction manifests itself in act, is accounted better than the man of a respectable past and higher plane of life who has lapsed into contented acquiescence with past deeds. For past deeds are not deeds, they are passive enjoyments. The bad man, on the other hand, is not the man who loves badness in and for itself. Such a man would be a mad man or a devil. All conduct, bad as well as good, is for the sake of some satisfaction, that is, some good. In the bad man, the satisfaction which is aimed at is simply the one congruent with existing inclinations, irrespective of the sufficiency of those inclinations in view of the changed capacity and environment: it is a good of having. The bad man, that is to say, does not recognize any ideal or active good; any good which has not already commended itself to him as such. This good may be good in itself; but, as distinguished from the good which requires action, that which would fulfill the present capacity or meet the present situation, it is bad.

Thus Alexander terms badness a survival, in part at least, of former goodness. Hinton says (Philosophy and Religion, p. 146), "That a thing is wrong does not mean that it ought never to have been done or thought, but that it ought to be left off". It will be noted that we are not dealing with the metaphysical or the religious problem of the nature and origin of evil, but simply with an account of bad action as it appears in individual conduct.

Badness has four traits, all derivable from this basal fact. They are: (1) Lawlessness, (2) Selfishness, (3) Baseness, (4) Demoralization.

1. Lawlessness. When desire and duty, that is, when desires based on past having and on future acting, conflict, the bad man lets duty go. He virtually denies that it is a good at all—it may be a good in the abstract but not a good for him. He denies that obligation as such has any value; that any end is to be consulted save his own state of mind. He denies that there is law for conduct—at least any law beyond the inclination which he happens to have at the time of action. Keeping himself within that which has verified itself to his feeling in the past, he abrogates all authority excepting that of his own immediate feelings.

2. Selfishness. It has already been shown that the self is not necessarily immoral, and hence that action for self is not necessarily bad—indeed, that the true self is social and interest in it right (see Sec. [XXXV]). But when a satisfaction based on past experience is set against one proceeding from an act as meeting obligation, there grows up a divorce in the self. The actual self, the self recognizing only past and sensible satisfaction, is set over against the self which recognizes the necessity of expansion and a wider environment. Since the former self confines its action to benefits demonstrably accruing to itself, while the latter, in meeting the demands of the situation, necessarily contributes to the satisfaction of others, one takes the form of a private self, a self whose good is set over against and exclusive of that of others, while the self recognizing obligation becomes a social self—the self which performs its due function in society. It is, again, the contrast between getting and doing.

All moral action is based upon the presupposition of the identity of good (Sec. [XL]), but it by no means follows that this identity of good can be demonstrated to the agent at the time of action. On the contrary, it is matter of the commonest experience that the sensible good, the demonstrable good (that is, the one visible on the line of past satisfaction) may be contradictory to the act which would satisfy the interests of others. The identity of interests can be proved only by acting upon it; to the agent, prior to action, it is a matter of faith. Choice presents itself then in these cases as a test: Do you believe that the Good is simply your private good, or is the true Good, is your good, one which includes the good of others? The condemnation passed upon the 'selfish' man is that he virtually declares that good is essentially exclusive and private. He shuts himself up within himself, within, that is, his past achievements, and the inclinations based upon them. The good man goes out of himself in new action. Bad action is thus essentially narrowing, it confines the self; good action is expansive and vital, it moves on to a larger self.

In fine, all conduct, good and bad, satisfies the self; bad conduct, however, aims at a self which, keeping its eye upon its private and assured satisfaction, refuses to recognize the increasing function with its larger social range,—the 'selfish' self.

Light is thrown upon this point by referring to what was said about interest (Sec. [XXXIV]). Interest is active feeling, feeling turned upon an object, and going out toward it so as to identify it with self. In this active and objective interest there is satisfaction, but the satisfaction is in the activity which has the object for its content. This is the satisfaction of the good self. In the bad self, interest is reduced to mere feeling; for the aim of life in such a self is simply to have certain feelings as its own possession; activity and its object are degraded into mere means for getting these sensations.