Outlines of a Critical Theory of Ethics · John Dewey
L.
Moral Responsibility. Here we have the basis of moral _responsibility_ or _accountability_. There is no responsibility for any result which is not intended or foreseen. Such a consequence is only physical, not moral. (Sec. VII). But when any result has been foreseen, and adopted as foreseen, such result is the outcome not of any external circumstances, nor of mere desires and impulses, but of the agent's conception of his own end. Now, because the result thus flows from the agent's own conception of an end, he feels himself responsible for it. It must be remembered that the end adopted is that which is conceived _as satisfying self_--that, indeed, when we say end of action, we mean only some proposed form of self-satisfaction. The adopted end always indicates, therefore, that sort of condition which the agent considers to be good, or self-satisfactory. It is because a result flows from the agent's _ideal of himself_, the thought of himself which he considers desirable or worth realizing, that the agent feels himself responsible. The result is simply an expression of himself; a manifestation of what he would have himself be. Responsibility is thus one aspect of the identity of character and conduct. (Sec. VII). We are responsible for our conduct because that conduct is ourselves objectified in actions.
The idea of responsibility is intensified whenever there have been two contrary lines of conduct conceived, of which one has been chosen. If the end adopted turns out not to be satisfactory, but, rather, unworthy and degrading, the agent feels that he _might_ have chosen the other end, and that if he did not, it was because his character was such, his ideal of himself was such, that this other end did not appeal to him. The actual result is felt to be the outcome of an unworthy character manifested in the adoption of a low form of satisfaction; and the evident contrast of this low form with a higher form, present to consciousness but rejected, makes the sense of responsibility more acute. As such, it is the judgment of disapprobation passed upon conduct; the feeling of remorse and of the desert of punishment. Freedom as the power of conceiving ends and of realizing the ideal end in action, is thus the basis both of responsibility and of approbation (or disapprobation).
_The Freedom of Indifference._ It is this potential freedom, arising from the power of proposing various ends of action, which, misinterpreted, gives rise to the theory of a liberty of indifferent choice--the theory that the agent can choose this or that without any ground or motive. The real experience is the knowledge, after the choice of one end, that since another end was also present to consciousness that other end might have been chosen, _if only the character had been such as to find its satisfaction in that other end_. The theory of indifference misconstrues this fact to mean that the agent might just as well have chosen that other end, without any if or qualification whatever. The theory of indifference, moreover, defeats its own end. The point which it is anxious to save is responsibility. It sees that if only one course of action were ever open to an agent, without the possibility of any _conception_ of another course, an agent, so acting, could not be held responsible for not having adopted that other course. And so it argues that there must always be the possibility of indifferent or alternate choice; the possibility of adopting this or that line of action without any motive. But if such were the case responsibility would be destroyed. If the end chosen is not an expression of character, if it does not manifest the agent's ideal of himself, if its choice is a matter of indifference, it does not signify morally, but is mere accident or caprice. It is because choice is _not_ a matter of indifference, but an outcome of character that the agent feels responsibility, and approves or disapproves. He virtually says: "I am responsible for this outcome, not because I could have chosen another end just as well _without any reason_, but because I thought of another end and rejected it; because my character was such that that end did not seem good, and was such that this end did seem good. My character is myself, and in this unworthy end I stand self-condemned."
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.