Outlines of a Critical Theory of Ethics · John Dewey
XXXVIII.
The Moral End is the Realization of a Community of Wills. Since the performance of function is, on the other side, the creation, perpetuation, and further development of an environment, of relations to the wills of others, its performance _is a common good_. It satisfies others who participate in the environment. The member of the family, of the state, etc., in exercising his function, contributes to the whole of which he is a member by realizing its spirit in himself. But the question discussed in section XXXVI recurs under another aspect. Granting that the satisfying of personal interests realizes a common good, what shall we say of the impersonal interests--interests in science and art. Is the good carpenter or chemist not only in so far a good man, but also a good social member? In other words, does every form of moral activity realize a common good, or is the moral end partly social, partly non-social? One objection sometimes brought to the doctrine that the moral end is entirely social, may be now briefly dismissed. This is the objection that a man has moral duties toward _himself_. Certainly, but what of _himself_? If he is essentially a social member, his duties toward himself have a social basis and bearing. The only relevant question is whether one is wholly a social member--whether scientific and artistic activities may not be non-social.
The ground here taken is that the moral end is wholly social. This does not mean that science and art are means to some social welfare beyond themselves. We have already stated that even the production of utilities must, as moral, be its own end. The position then is that intellectual and artistic interests _are themselves_ social, when considered in the completeness of their relations--that interest in the development of intelligence is, in and of itself, interest in the well-being of society. Unless this be true there is no moral end at all, but only moral ends. There is no comprehensive unity in life, but a number of ends which, being irreducible to a common principle, must be combined on the best principle of compromise available. We have no 'The Good', but an aggregate of fragmentary ends. It helps nothing to say that this necessary unity is found in the _self_ to be realized, unless we are pointed to something in the self that unites the social and non-social functions. Our objection is that the separation of intellectual interests from social makes a chasm in the self. For the same reason it follows that in the case of a collision of social with intellectual ends--say the conflict of a man's interests as a member of a family with his interests in new scientific discovery--no reconciliation is possible. If the interests are forms of social interest, there is a common end in both, on the basis of which the conflict can be resolved. While such considerations do not prove that there is but one end, and that social, they may well make us hesitate about carelessly taking a position of which they are the logical consequence.
Of course, every one recognizes that a certain amount of scientific and artistic interest is social in character. A certain amount of interest in truth, or in intelligence, a certain amount of susceptibility to beauty, a certain amount of devotion to utility, are universally recognized to be necessary to make judicious, agreeable and efficient social members. The whole system of modern education has meaning only on this supposition. More than this: A certain amount of intelligence, and a certain amount of susceptibility to embodied ideals, _must_ exist to give moral conduct. A moral end is, as we have seen, always a _conception_, an idea. The very act of bringing conduct out of the impulsive into the moral sphere, depends upon the development of intelligence so as to transform a feeling into the perception of a situation. And, as we watch moral development from childhood to maturity, is it not evident that progress consists in power to conceive of larger and better defined ends? to analyze the situation which demands active response, the function which needs exercise, into specific relations, instead of taking it partially or even upon some one else's say so? Conduct, so far as not based upon an intelligent recognition and realization of the relationships involved, is either sentimental, or _merely_ habitual--in the former case immoral, and in the latter failing of the complete morality possible.
If the necessary part played in conduct by artistic cultivation is not so plain, it is largely because 'Art' has been made such an unreal Fetich--a sort of superfine and extraneous polish to be acquired only by specially cultivated people. In reality, living is itself the supreme art; it requires fineness of touch; skill and thoroughness of workmanship; susceptible response and delicate adjustment to a situation apart from reflective analysis; instinctive perception of the proper harmonies of act and act, of man and man. Active art is the embodiment of ideals; the clothing of ideas otherwise abstract in their peculiar and fit garb of concrete outward detail; passive art is the quick and accurate response to such embodiments as are already made. What were human conduct without the one and the other? Granting the necessity of knowledge and of its artistic application in conduct, the question arises as to where the line is to be drawn. Evidently, if anywhere, at specialisms, remote philosophic or mathematical endeavors; life-times spent in inventive attempts without appreciable outcome. But to draw the line is not easy. The remote of one generation is the social tool of the next; the abstract mathematics and physics of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are the great social forces of the nineteenth--the locomotive, the telegraph, the telephone, etc. And how, in any case, can we tell a scientific investigator that up to a certain experiment or calculation his work may be social, beyond that, not? All that we can say is that beyond a certain point its social character is not obvious to sense and that the work must be carried on by faith.
Thus it is that we dispose of objections like Bradley's (Ethical Studies, p. 202): "Nothing is easier than to suppose a life of art or speculation which, as far as we can see, though true to itself, has, so far as others are concerned, been sheer waste or even loss, and which knew that it was so." That we can not _see_ any social _result_ in such cases has nothing to do with the question whether or not the interests themselves are social. We may imagine a life of philanthropic activity, say of devotion to emancipation of slaves in a country wholly given over to slavery, or of a teacher in an unenlightened country, which, as far as we can see, (though, in this case, as in the one referred to by Mr. Bradley, everything depends upon how far we _can_ see) has been sheer waste, so far as influence on others is concerned. The point is whether in such cases the life lived is not one of devotion to the interests of humanity as such.
We have been trying to show that everyone admits that science and art, up to a certain point, are social, and that to draw a line where they cease to be so, is in reality to draw a line where we cease to _see_ their social character. That we should cease to _see_ it, is necessary in the case of almost every advance. Just because the new scientific movement is new, we can realize its social effects only afterwards. But it may be questioned whether the motive which actuates the man of science is not, when fully realized, a _faith_ in the social bearing of what he is doing. If we were to go into a metaphysical analysis, the question would have to be raised whether a barely intellectual fact or theory be not a pure abstraction--an unreality if kept apart entirely from the activities of men in relation to one another.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.