Outlines of a Critical Theory of Ethics · John Dewey
IV.
Division of Ethics. The main ethical problem is just this: What is the conduct that really deserves the name of conduct, the conduct of which all other kinds of action can be only a perverted or deflected form? Or, since it is the end which gives action its moral value, what is the true end, _summum bonum_ of man? Knowing this, we have a standard by which we judge particular acts. Those which embody this end are _right_, others wrong. The question of the rightness of conduct is simply a special form of the question concerning the nature of the end or good. But the end bears another relation to specific acts. They are not only marked off by it as right or wrong, but they have to fulfill it. The end or good decides what should be or _ought_ to be. Any act necessary to fulfill the end is a _duty_. Our second inquiry will be as to the nature of obligation or duty. Then we have to discuss the nature of a being who is capable of action, of manifesting and realizing the end; capable of right (or wrong) of obligatory and good action. This will lead us to discuss the question of _Freedom, or Moral Capacity and its Realization_. The discussion of these three abstract questions will constitute Part I of our theory; Part II will take up the various forms and institutions in which the good is objectively realized, the family, state, etc.; while Part III will be devoted to an account of the moral experience of the individual.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.