John Dewey's Ethics: Democracy as Experience

2. Moral Theory and Moral Practice

∂≥ t wo Moral Theory and Moral Practice What passes for ‘‘ethics’’ oscillates between sermonizing, moralizing of an edifying emotional type, and somewhat remote dialectics on abstract theoretical points. . . . It must be admitted that those who have worked it [morality] most successfully have done so indirectly. They have approached the mine not as moralists but as novelists, dramatists, poets, or as reformers, philanthropists, and statesmen. The contributions which they have made have found their way, however, into common life rather than into moral theory. (LW 2:398–399) Moral Theory and the Quest for Rules Dewey would agree with contemporary anti-theorists about the shallowness and sterility of most normative ethics. For centuries, philosophers have tried to formulate theories to assist and illuminate moral practice. What is seldom questioned is the notion that this is best achieved by seeking the underlying criteria, decision procedure, or antecedent moral rules by which individuals distinguish right from wrong. Dewey thought this theoretical approach to the task wrongheaded because of its flawed m o r a l t h e o r y a n d e x p e r i e n c e ∂∂ assumptions about morality and the role of theoretical intelligence. The subject matter of ethics is moral practice, that is, conduct in a situation where one has to decide what one ought to do. Dewey saw early on that conduct is ‘‘absolutely individualized . . . there is no such thing as conduct in general; conduct is what and where and when and how to the last inch’’ (EW 3:98). This raises the following issue for the moral philosopher: can there be ethical theory if theory is by its very nature general and abstract, while moral conduct and what one ought to do in a situation are always unique, concrete, and individual? Philosophers can avoid or resolve the tension expressed within this question in a variety of ways. One could bring moral practice closer to theory by denying that practice is as concrete and individual as it seems. Hence, the belief that moral actions are unique and contextually particular, although not illusory , is nonetheless the result of ignorance or of remaining at the level of appearances. On such a view, moral reality is ultimately constituted by general or universal laws that can be represented within our theories. This rationalistic view resolves the tension, but only by reducing actions to laws in a way that denies that there is a real tension. A more empirically minded response to the disconnect between moral theory and practice would be to claim that our theories must do a better job of representing the individual character of our moral practice; in other words, we should work toward ethical theories that reflect the concreteness and particularity of moral practice. On this view, the tension is the result of the inadequacy of our current theories. This should not discourage the e√ort to find a theory that, for example, has a su≈ciently large set of rules that covers and exhausts the particularity of our moral lives. But it is doubtful that the uniqueness of each situation can be captured by a set of rules, no matter how exhaustive. If rules are always general how can they be faithful to or fully capture the uniqueness and novelty of every situation? One might reply that a rule-based view need not capture uniqueness, but rather that it have enough particularity to be able to make particular moral decisions. The assumption here is that whatever residuum of uniqueness is not captured by our rules is not important or irrelevant. But this is precisely what needs to be proven. The view that ethical theories can determine the right action prior to and across situations is an overestimation due in part to an oversimpli- fied view of moral experience pro√ered by those in the grips of the philosophical fallacy. No one could raise any serious doubts about the feasibility and importance of constructing ethical theories for moral decision if, for example, any of the following were true of our concrete moral life: m o r a l t h e o r y a n d m o r a l p r a c t i c e ∂∑ ∞) Morality is a set of self-su≈cient universal values or rules. Moral judgments are things deduced from a hierarchy of universal principles or fixed criteria. ≤) All moral values are...