Outlines of a Critical Theory of Ethics · John Dewey
LI.
Moral Reformation. Freedom considered as potential, depending upon the power of the agent to frame diverse ends, is the basis not only of responsibility, but also of the possibility of reformation, or of change in character and conduct. All moral action is the expression of self, but the self is not something fixed or rigid. It includes as a necessary part of itself the possibility of framing conceptions of what it would be, and there is, therefore, at any time the possibility of acting upon some ideal hitherto unrealized. If conduct were the expression of character, in a sense which identified character wholly with past attainments, then reformation would be impossible. What a man once was he must always continue to be. But past attainments do not exhaust all the possibilities of character. Since conduct necessarily implies a continuous adjustment of developing capacity to new conditions, there is the ability to frame a changed ideal of self-satisfaction--that is, ability to lead a new life. That the new ideal is adopted from experience of the unworthy nature of former deeds is what we should expect. The chosen end having proved itself unsatisfactory, the alternative end, previously rejected, recurs to consciousness with added claims. To sum up: The doctrine that choice depends upon character is correct, but the doctrine is misused when taken to mean that a man's outward conduct will always be in the same direction that it has been. Character involves all the ideas of different and of better things which have been present to the agent, although he has never attempted to carry them out. And there is always the possibility that, if the proper influences are brought to bear, some one of these latent ideals may be made vital, and wholly change the bent of character and of conduct.
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