Ethics

by John Dewey (Editor), Jo Ann Boydston (Editor)

This fifth volume of the Middle Works contains Ethics by John Dewey and his former colleague at the University of Michigan, James H. Tufts, which ap­peared as one of the last in the Holt American Science series of textbooks. Within some six months after publica­tion, Ethics was adopted as a textbook by thirty colleges. The book continued to be extremely popular and widely used, and was reprinted twenty-five times before both authors completely revised their respective parts for the new 1932 edition.

 

Up to the time Ethics was published, Dewey’s approach to ethics was known primarily from two short publications that were developed for use by his classes at the University of Michigan: Outlines of a Critical Theory of Ethics (1891) and The Study of Ethics: A Syl­labus (1894). Charles Stevenson notes in his Introduction to the present edition that Ethics afforded Dewey an opportu­nity to preserve and enrich the content of those earlier works and at the same time to expound his position in a more systematic manner.

624 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1983

About the author

John Dewey was an American philosopher, psychologist and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. Dewey, along with Charles Sanders Peirce and William James, is recognized as one of the founders of the philosophy of pragmatism and of functional psychology. He was a major representative of the progressive and progressive populist philosophies of schooling during the first half of the 20th century in the USA.

In 1859, educator and philosopher John Dewey was born in Burlington, Vermont. He earned his doctorate at Johns Hopkins University in 1884. After teaching philosophy at the University of Michigan, he joined the University of Chicago as head of a department in philosophy, psychology and education, influenced by Darwin, Freud and a scientific outlook. He joined the faculty of Columbia University in 1904. Dewey's special concern was reform of education. He promoted learning by doing rather than learning by rote. Dewey conducted international research on education, winning many academic honors worldwide. Of more than 40 books, many of his most influential concerned education, including My Pedagogic Creed (1897), Democracy and Education (1902) and Experience and Education (1938). He was one of the founders of the philosophy of pragmatism. A humanitarian, he was a trustee of Jane Addams' Hull House, supported labor and racial equality, and was at one time active in campaigning for a third political party. He chaired a commission convened in Mexico City in 1937 inquiring into charges made against Leon Trotsky during the Moscow trials. Raised by an evangelical mother, Dewey had rejected faith by his 30s. Although he disavowed being a "militant" atheist, when his mother complained that he should be sending his children to Sunday school, he replied that he had gone to Sunday School enough to make up for any truancy by his children. As a pragmatist, he judged ideas by the results they produced. As a philosopher, he eschewed an allegiance to fixed and changeless dogma and superstition. He belonged to humanist societies, including the American Humanist Association. D. 1952.

Reviews

[Jeffrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Came for the ethics, which I found incredibly rewarding, there are so many incredibly deep and rich insights that almost every page is now full of notes and highlights.

The end is an analysis on the problems of the economic order in which Dewey compares the strict individualist (laissez-faire) interpretation of capitalism in which the state has no role except for courts to enforce contracts between private individuals and firms, and then of socialism. He says either one taken to the extreme is absurd and there should be a middle way. He also does an incredible job illustrating Formal Freedom and Real Freedom within the contexts of these two paradigms.

What is remarkable is this passage I will quote, in which Dewey says that if private enterprises were ever to buy influence in the State (federal government) and state legislatures then the people would be impelled to act upon the moral debasement inherent in this state of affairs as the social conscience will demand state ownership. Here we are roughly 100 years after this was written and 40 years of aggressive Neoliberalism, and not only has private enterprise commanded complete control of the ‘state’ in America, but across the entire globe (read Sassen Territory, Authority, Rights - From Medieval to Global Assemblages for insight into this). Dewey’s greatest fear was not only realized, it was super charged and has overtaken the globe.

“It is for those who do not believe in public control to prove that in the great enterprises for the production of the necessaries of life, for transportation, banking, mining, and the like, private enterprise is not dangerous. The conduct of many-not all-of these enterprises in recent years, not only in their economic aspects, but in their recklessness of human life, health, and morality, is what makes socialism a practical question. If it is adopted, it will not be for any academic or a priori reasons. It will be because private enterprise fails to serve the public, and its injustice becomes intolerable. If business enterprise, as sometimes threatens, seeks to subordinate political and social institutions, including legislatures and courts, to economic interests, the choice must be between public control and public ownership. And if, whether by the inherent nature of legal doctrine and procedure, or by the superior shrewdness of capital in evading regulation, control is made to appear ineffective, the social conscience will demand ownership. To subordinate the State to commercial interests is as immoral as to make the economic interest supreme in the individual.”

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

The mature formulation of Dewey's ethics is mainly covered in his co-authored monograph with Tuffts. A very good starting place indeed if you want to get acquainted with Dewey's philosophy, although a good general introduction would be found in Reconstruction. Additional reading material on ethics would include Theory of Valuation (1939) and the article 'Three Independent Factors in Morality'.