Ethical Theory and Social Change

Abraham Edel

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781138509689
• eBook ISBN: 9781351325981
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Ethics & Moral Philosophy

John Dewey was unique among American philosophers in his insistence that the events, the social structure, the beliefs and attitudes of a period, its models of science and human history, all have some constitutive role in its philosophical theory. This belief is amply demonstrated in Dewey's own writings. Dewey and James H. Tufts' Ethics was first published in 1908 with a revised edition appearing in 1932. Dewey's part in the latter was wholly rewritten, and in effect constituted a new work, showing that Dewey did not believe ethical beliefs were eternal and unchanging. In Ethical Theory and Social Change, Abraham Edel provides a comparative analysis of the two editions to show how Dewey conceived ethics as part of an ongoing culture, not intelligible if isolated.The years between the two editions of Dewey and Tufts' Ethics were momentous in America and across the world. In 1908 industrialism was in high gear, putting greater pressure on social institutions and raising expectations of technological progress and extended democratic growth. By 1932, the devastation of World War I, economic depression, and the rise of totalitarianisms of the left and right had shattered that earlier optimism. The shift toward secular philosophy and new perspectives in research and method in the social sciences was challenging established universalizing views of morality with perceptions of fundamental moral conflict and the threat of relativism in their resolution.Dewey, is an ideal case for comparing changes in ethical theory over a quarter century. Unlike many philosophers he appreciated change and many of his basic ideas are geared to the problem of human control over change. Moreover he is concerned with the relation of theory and practice, and much of his work in metaphysics and epistemology is devoted to discovering the role that doctrines in these fields play and how they reflect the movement of social life. He is constantly concerned with ethics, with the history of ethics, and with the presuppositions of ethical theories that are studied in the social sciences and applied in the normative disciplines of politics, education, and law.Dewey's project of comparison in ethics reveals how theory is crystallized in the processes of the growth of knowledge in all fields and the human vicissitudes of history. Ethical Theory and Social Change will be of interest to philosophers, sociologists, and intellectual historians.

1

Introduction

Dewey and Tufts’ Ethics was first published in 1908; the revised edition appeared in 1932. Dewey’s part in the latter was wholly rewritten, and in effect constituted a new work. It might seem a mild academic exercise to compare the versions and see what had been changed. In the traditional isolation of academic thought it might even appear a quixotic project—why not attend rather to which was a more adequate moral philosophy, which had more correct answers to the theoretical problems of ethics, which brought us closer to the pulse of contemporary ideas? At best, ship the project over to those who are interested in intellectual history and don’t bother the philosophers with it. They are too busy with philosophical truth to worry about philosophical history.

On the other hand, there is the gnawing possibility that the events, the social structure, the beliefs and attitudes of a period, its models of science and human history, all have some constitutive role in its philosophical theory. In that case the comparison of 1908 and 1932 offers an exciting vista. 1908 is in the period when industrialism is moving into higher gear and putting greater pressure on the social institutions that had not sufficiently accommodated its demands, when people still look on the future as an era of unfolding progress and extending democratic growth, when the next revolution in science is only getting under way and has not yet affected modes of thought, when philosophic thought about human life is still reflecting in abstract form the effort to reconcile Darwinism and traditional religion, when imperialism and the struggle for the division of the world among European powers has begun to change the temper of political relations and national outlooks but has not yet permeated general consciousness as a new era. By 1932 all this is changed. Industrialism is in high gear and urbanization has shifted the balance, but it is a period of world depression. The hope of peaceful progress has been shattered by the first World War, and the vista of slow democratic growth at least interrupted by the advent of Russian communism, Italian fascism, and the imminent threat of German nazism. A new physics has definitely replaced the Newtonian outlook and a new logic has shaken philosophic thought. The balance is shifting toward secular philosophy and philosophy itself is becoming a profession. The social sciences are staking claims for the study of human life and thrusting different perspectives of method and research into the arena. An ethics that had coasted on the comfortable assumption that people agreed about morality but only argued about how it was to be justified was startled into the perception that there were fundamental moral conflicts and the threat of relativism in the answers.

Dewey is an ideal case for comparing the changes in an ethical theory over a quarter of a century, just as that period itself encapsulates a packed budget of changes. Unlike many philosophers Dewey appreciates change, many of his basic ideas are geared to the problem of human control under change. Moreover, he is concerned with the relation of theory and practice, and much of his work in metaphysics and epistemology is devoted to discovering the role that doctrines in these fields play and how they reflect the movement of social life. He is constantly concerned with ethics, with the history of ethics, with the presuppositions of an ethical theory that are studied in the social sciences and applied in the normative disciplines of politics, education and law. While no person can be fully conscious of all the sources of change in his thoughts at least Dewey’s theory of ethics would offer no barriers to the attempt to see what growth in the various domains of knowledge and what happenings on the historical scene prompted theoretical revision. We can even assume that he would be likely to be very conscious of what entered into changing views of ethics since he had himself gone through one earlier profound change of thought. In the 1890s he moved from his Outlines of a Critical Theory of Ethics (1891) to The Study of Ethics: A Syllabus (1894) under the impact of William James’s Principles of Psychology.¹ If an ethical theory could change under a revised psychological theory, why not continually—as ideas grew and were transformed in anthropology, social psychology, sociology, law, education, politics, as well as in the response of philosophers to new ideas in physics and logic, in biology and in linguistics? The project of comparison in ethics thus may reveal how an ethical theory is crystallized in the processes of the growth of knowledge in all fields and the human vicissitudes in history. And in doing this it may plausibly show the place of presuppositions from all these areas in the structure of an ethical theory itself.

Our story begins with a lecture given by Dewey to the French Philosophical Society in 1930. It was translated from the French by Jo Ann Boydston and published in Educational Theory in July 1966, and entitled “Three Independent Factors in Morals”.² Its theme was, to put it almost starkly, that there is a basic indeterminateness in morality, reflected in the theoretical struggles of good, right, and virtue. This is because morality has three independent roots in human life and these in moral decision are a source of systematic conflict.

Boydston writes in her introductory comment “In 1930, Dewey and Tufts must surely have been working on the revised edition of the Ethics which was published two years after the present ‘communication’ was read to the French Philosophical Society ... The present statement may well have been, as remarked in the Society’s discussion, a premiere presentation of those ideas. In any case, it took those members of his audience who had followed Dewey’s previous writings completely by surprise. In the discussion, the anthropologist Mauss says: ‘I believe Professor Dewey has given us quite a new perspective on new points, because in the works which he has published, he has not before expressed so definitely the opinions he presented today.’ And E. Leroux, who is introduced by the chairman as one who knows Dewey’s philosophy well and called upon for comment says that his authority refers to past work and not to the presentation of that evening. The past works ‘are not at all the same ideas he has just presented here. I had forgotten that Mr. Dewey is a man who renews himself incessantly and that he does not like to rely on his writings.’ Dewey replying (with an obviously keener eye for his own principle of continuity) describes the change as a broadening.”

Actually, it may not have been the first presentation. In a letter to Professor Horace S. Fries, who had apparently written him to inquire about the differences between the 1908 and 1932 editions, Dewey mentions a paper he had written about 1926 or 1927 for a small club to which he belonged. (This was probably the New York Philosophy Club at Columbia.) A portion of a paper unearthed by Boydston seemed at first to belong to this presentation. It had two distinct parts, the second of which overlapped the 1930 paper, and so suggested it was a precursor of the latter. However, Boydston concluded on the basis of a calligraphic study that it was a later paper that used part of that study. Now it seems to us doubtful that Dewey would have presented this later paper after the full development of the ideas in the revised edition of the Ethics in 1932. Hence we may think of the manuscript, which it is useful to compare with the 1930 paper, as giving us ideas that flank the latter from the 1926 date mentioned in the Fries letter to the 1932 publication of the Ethics.

Our cast of textual characters for our inquiry is beginning to take shape, and it is well to spare our labor by giving them names for reference. Let us title them the three roots paper, the Fries letter, the club paper. And of course the main characters are the two editions of the Ethics for which almost as proper names we will hereafter employ 08 and 32. Now the first three of these, to be discussed in the next chapter, all concern a shift in conceptual structure from 08 to 32. All the sources here are addressed to philosophers and so it is almost natural that structural questions should be in the forefront. But what would have been Dewey’s reply if instead of the philosopher Fries a social scientist had written him a letter of inquiry about the changes between 08 and 32? We get some inkling of a direction of inquiry in the discussion of the three roots paper on the occasion of its presentation. The historian of ancient philosophy, Robin, questions whether there is really a sharp distinction in Greek thought between the idea of the good and the idea of law, that is, between the ideal of the good and the search for a jural order. Bouglé is reminded of the pluralist strands in the sociological thought of Lévy-Bruhl and Durkheim. Leroux finds a kind of unity in Dewey’s psychology as expounded in Dewey’s own Human Nature and Conduct and wonders whether that militates against a pluralism in moral decision. Jean Wahl makes a comparison to ideas of political pluralism, even in Dewey himself, and calls attention to another philosopher who had believed in an irreducible plurality of moral principles. On the whole, French thought of this period finds no difficulty in passing readily between philosophy and what is later set off sometimes sharply in the Anglo-American tradition as the social sciences.

A direct answer can be found in the then prevalent view of the social-historical unity of human development that stands out clearly in 08. The basic underlying picture, we shall see, is the emergence in the progress of civilization of a reflective individualism making continually greater inroads on an unreflective customary morality. This is certified by the anthropology of the day and is aligned with a psychology of individual development. All the studies of institutional change are brought into this circle of thought. Tufts bears the brunt of the historical exposition, while Dewey’s attention is almost wholly absorbed in the theoretical changes wrought by the growth of reflection. By sharp contrast, in 32 this picture of a linear development in morality has disappeared. Yet this is not an isolated rejection of an anthropological thesis of the beginning of our century. It topples a reigning concept of individualism and leads to a reconsideration of the very idea of custom itself. It revises the theory of history and of social influence. And these in turn have an effect on the idea of reason in ethics, the scope of human learning and control, and the evaluation of genetic method in ethical theory. These developments took a long time in Dewey’s thought. Indeed, in spite of many traces, we cannot be sure that the foundational shift is complete before his paper on “Anthropology and Ethics” which was a chapter in Ogburn and Goldenweiser’s The Social Sciences and Their Interrelations in 1927. Here the linear view of moral evolution is definitely rejected, and its various forms tracked down and criticized.

Our three sources—the Fries letter, the club paper, and three roots— give us a clear idea of the shift in conceptual structure from 08 to 32. We will not yet, at this point, have to look into the detail of 08. Let us start with the relevant portions of the Fries letter. Dewey writes:

I supposed my position in the early edition was that of a socialized utilitarian ...

As far as I can tell a large part of the change in the two editions was made for pedagogical reasons. The material of Part II [Dewey’s theoretical part] I felt was too much couched in terms of ethical theories. I re-organized the material with a view to making the approach direct and criticism of theories secondary. The theoretical change is in the direction of a sharper distinction between different strands in morals. I wrote a paper about 26 or 27 for a small philosophical club to which I belong on the independent variables in morals, the good, right and virtue, end, standard, approbation [in Dewey’s original statement he has ‘end’ written above ‘good’, ‘standard’ above ‘right’, ‘approbation’ above ‘virtue’] and the ideas I expressed in that were the ones that expressed the theoretical change. I was a little surprised to find in going back over the early edition that the idea was at times implicit there; it must have been somewhere below express consciousness ....

[Dewey goes on to say that the change was connected with] a perception that there are three independent factors which have influences [influenced] the development of morals & that many of our moral problems come from the necessity of uniting them when we act. I fncy [fancy] that in the early tradition [edition?] I followed the tradition in making ends, the good, the basic idea, and in that sense the end was made primary. I became convinced that in the actual development of morals the concept of right had in fact played an independent role. I do not now reverse the roles but hold that it is a moral problem—one of conduct—to adapt the concepts of right and virtue to that of the good end. Theoretically they are distinct and independent.

[A postscript adds] As far as I can recal [recall] any specific influence in changing my views it was reading more carefully the English moralists. I saw that they determined the good in terms of approbations or identified it with the virtuous; of course I knew already that Kant determined it in terms of obligation. The consequence was that I was led to the idea of three independent concepts.

The club paper is a 13 page paper entitled “Conflict and Independent Variables in Morals” and begins to coincide on its page 6 with the latter part of three roots. While both start with conflict and uncertainty as basic in the moral situation, the club paper headlines conflict in its title; three roots limits its title to the independence of the factors. The failure to recognize conflict is traced to postulating a single principle to explain the moral life. With moral action having only one source, the moral choice becomes viewed as between the moral and the immoral. The club paper illustrated this with choices between the more immediate and the more important good; a particular good and a general; the personal and the social. Such conflicts are not denied for some cases but declared not to advance the theoretical problem.

The three roots are related to three major traditions in the history of morals. Their theoretical forms are as follows. The morality of ends, with the central idea of the good, is based on impulses, appetites and desires. Without foresight only differing strength determines action, but with foresight of consequences they become measurable in terms of their results. Comparison, judgment and correction enter. In time two moral concepts were formed in such processes: reason, introducing order and system, and ends culminating in a hierarchy of goods up to a final good. The second theoretical form is the morality of laws. This comes from the basic phenomena of group life, each trying to secure the acceptance of his purposes and plans by others, and generates an established system of order or right, that is, requirements clothed with authority. Dewey says: “The point that I want to emphasize is this: there is a difference in nature, both in origin and in mode of operation, between an object which seems capable of satisfying desire and which is thereby a good, and an object which sets up a demand on our conduct which we must acknowledge. One cannot be reduced to the other.”³

A third independent variable in morals is based on the phenomena of praise and blame, spontaneous approval and disapproval. These are natural responses to the acts of others, and out of them come our ideas of virtue and vice.

Dewey traces finally the conflict of the three factors. What is desired may be prohibited, and what is prohibited may happen to be approved; to recognize the reality of conflict would be a gain in theory and morality.

In the club paper the formulation is sometimes blunter, and to that extent cleare...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Table of Contents
• Abbreviations and References to Dewey’s Writings
• Brief Bibliography
• Acknowledgments
• Preface
• Dewey’s Life and Times
• Dewey’s Philosophical Writings
• 1. Introduction
• Part I: Fashioning the Conceptual Structure of 08
• Part II: On the Road to 32
• Part III: Some Resulting Lessons
• Index