Niebuhr ridiculed Dewey’s notion that ignorance was the principal cause of injustice, stating instead that it was “our predatory self-interest.” There was no evidence, said Niebuhr, that human beings became less selfish or less predatory as they became better educated. War, cruelty, and injustice survived because people were by nature sinful. Niebuhr accused the liberal world of being “in perfect flight from the Christian doctrine of sin.”
