Outlines of a Critical Theory of Ethics

by John Dewey

LXIX.

Goodness as Found in Character.

We have treated of the forming of moral ideals, and of the attempt to realize them against the counter attractions of sensible desire. We have now to treat these ideas as actual ends of conduct and thus reacting upon the agent. The good character, considered in relation to the moral struggle, is the one which chooses the right end, which endeavors to be better. The good character in itself is that made by this choice. It is good for the self to choose a due end in an effort caused by contrary allurements. But the very fact of the struggle witnesses that morality is not yet the natural and spontaneous manifestation of character. A wholly good man would feel such satisfaction in the contemplation of the ideal good that contrary desires would not affect him. He would take pleasure only in the right. Every accomplished moral deed tends to bring this about. Moral realization brings satisfaction. The satisfaction becomes one with the right act. Duty and desire grow into harmony. Interest and virtue tend toward unity.

This is the truth aimed at, but not attained, by the hedonistic school. In complete moral action, happiness and rightness know no divorce. And this is true, even though the act, in some of its aspects, involves pain. The act, so far as its quality of rightness is concerned, calls forth unalloyed satisfaction, however bound up with pain to self and to others in some respects. The error of hedonism is not in insisting that right action is pleasurable, but in its failure to supply content to the idea of happiness, in its failure to define what happiness is. In the failure to show those active relations of man to nature and to man involved in human satisfaction, it reduces happiness to the abstraction of agreeable sensation.

A virtue then, in the full sense, that is as the expression of virtuous character, and not of the struggle of character to be virtuous against the allurements of passive goods, is an interest. The system of virtues includes the various forms which interest assumes. Truthfulness, for example, is interest in the media of human exchange; generosity is interest in sharing any form of superior endowment with others less rich by nature or training, etc. It is distinguished from natural generosity, which may be mere impulse, by its being an interest in the activity or social relation itself, instead of in some accidental accompaniment of the relation.

Another way of getting at the nature of the virtues is to consider them as forms of freedom. Positive freedom is the good, it is realized activity, the full and unhindered performance of function. A virtue is any one aspect which the free performance of function may take. Meekness is one form of the adjustment of capacity to surroundings; honesty another; indignation another; scientific excellence another, and so on. In each of these virtues, the agent realizes his freedom: Freedom from subjection to caprice and blind appetite, freedom in the full play of activity.

LXX.

Two Kinds of Virtues.

We may recognize two types of virtuous action. These are:

1. The Special Virtues. These arise from special capacities or special opportunities. The Greek sense of virtue was almost that of "excellence", some special fitness or power of an agent. There is the virtue of a painter, of a scientific investigator, of a philanthropist, of a comedian, of a statesman, and so on. The special act may be manifested in view of some special occasion, some special demand of the environment—charity, thankfulness, patriotism, chastity, etc. Goodness, as the realization of the moral end, is a system, and the special virtues are the particular members of the system.