Such a picture, however, should not be taken naïvely. All sorts of values can spring from experience. One child may discover a capacity for empathy, but another may discover the pleasure of bullying others or torturing animals. A child who breaks a glass may discover the courage to be honest when asked “Did you break this?,” but she may also discover creative talents in lying and the power to deceive. Dewey does not shy away from the difficulty of this reality; this is precisely why the moral life must cultivate virtues of thoughtful reflection and critical reevaluation. He would point out to those who would unequivocally say that empathy and honesty are good and bullying and deceit are bad how ambiguous our moral existence really is.
Is telling the truth always right? The German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) said “yes.” Kant’s test for a moral act was whether we could universalize the “maxim” or rule of action implied in it without contradiction. And indeed one can consistently universalize the maxim “always tell the truth” into a law for all rational beings; no contradiction follows. One cannot do so for lying—a world of universal liars is logically impossible. But would you honestly tell an enraged, drunken husband that his estranged wife was staying in your house? During war, skilled “liars” are employed to deliver false intelligence to the enemy. Likewise we may ask: is empathy always good? We may empathize with someone in such a way so that she remains dependent and focused on her weaknesses or develops into a hypochondriac. “Tough love” at times may be better.
It was Dewey’s refusal to pay lip service to empty absolutes, so useless in practice that so often scandalized people who wanted morality to be a simple set of dictates, a chart of right and wrong actions that would get them off the hook of thinking for themselves. This does not mean Dewey thought every response to a moral problem of equal value or as being “right for the one who made the choice.” That is a position known as “relativism,” a view that goes all the way back to the Greek philosopher Protagoras (490–420 BCE). But there is a vast difference between the relativist, who says all values are arbitrary, subjective matters of taste, not capable of being criticized, and what we might call the “relationalist” or “contextualist.” A relational view of value sees it as a function of our being caught up in a world and interacting with it; we are always in a context—but a context with a history and with possibilities. The context calls for reflection and inquiry beyond any subjective response. It is true that we may have an immediate, unreflective response of liking or disliking something. Dewey tends to call such instances “prizings” or “values”; but the story doesn’t end there. If we simply respond to them, experience may teach us to stop and think next time. Such prizings may be reevaluated in the light of other values. Prizings, or immediate likes and dislikes, need to be distinguished from the process of valuation, the reflection upon the situation and its possibilities for conduct. The meaning of the initial like or dislike becomes enlarged and so puts the value into a different context: it is “reevaluated.” Thus the challenge Dewey sets up is not between “absolute” versus “relative” (i.e., subjective) values but between developing a morally thoughtful or a morally thoughtless character. The subjective relativist is content merely to undergo whatever feeling comes his or her way. The contextual relationalist seeks to develop and grow through being attentive to experience and its possibilities.
To return to our example, we may have been raised to think that being good means being obedient until the day we realize with horror what “following orders” can mean. In 1968, during the Vietnam War, a helicopter pilot, Hugh Thompson Jr., witnessed the My Lai Massacre in progress and halted it. He and his two crewmen saw American soldiers shooting unarmed civilians, many women and children. He landed his helicopter and threatened to shoot the American servicemen if they continued. They were carrying out the orders of their commander, Lieutenant Calley. Calley himself defended his actions by saying he was only “following orders.” Thompson’s courage was only officially recognized many years later, while in the meantime, in the passion of the moment and in the military’s attempt to hide such atrocities, he was castigated as disloyal and unpatriotic. In 2009, Calley finally said he was “sorry.” Following orders or obeying superiors does not necessarily ensure one is doing what is right or that one is thereby a good person. Lieutenant Calley is an extreme example of moral thoughtlessness.
If one expects ethics to be a list of simple rules to solve all the moral dilemmas of life for us, then Dewey’s approach will be disappointing indeed, for Dewey stresses that the moral life must be one of constant reflection, questioning, exploring, and endeavoring to create and follow worthwhile ideals. It is the endeavor to live thoughtfully. This is a process one does not carry out alone but in constant interaction with others. Ethical thinking is not simply the internal, private search for what the voice of conscience says. It is often carried out in discussion with friends and others so that we may have an enhanced view of the situation and ourselves. Indeed, we have the capacity for deliberating privately because as children we were gradually taught to be reflective. “We deliberate with ourselves because others have deliberated with us,” says Dewey. It is certainly one of the main themes of Theodor Geisel’s—Dr. Seuss’s—books to help children begin to deliberate morally and sensitively about their world.
Before discussing Dewey’s views of moral deliberation and what it is to have a moral character, it would help to contrast Dewey’s approach with the two dominant schools of ethics, utilitarianism and deontological ethics.1 When one takes a course in ethics, frequently these two approaches are the only ones extensively discussed and contrasted. Utilitarianism says one should act for the greatest good (happiness) for the greatest number. It urges taking consequences into account. Deontological ethics says simply do what is right; do your duty and the consequences be damned. Both approaches try to interpret all moral values in light of one supreme value (happiness or duty), and both try to provide a universal rule of conduct by which any and every action may be judged. Dewey’s ethics provides a different approach, one that refuses to reduce all moral values to one supreme value or that believes ethics is a matter of judging individual actions by universal rules. This contrast helps explain Dewey’s ethical thought and distinguishes Dewey’s views from utilitarianism, with which it is often confused.
Utilitarianism, best represented by British philosophers Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) and John Stuart Mill (1806–1873), picks on one value, happiness (which they understood as pleasure), and came up with a fixed rule: Always act so that your action realizes the greatest happiness for the greatest number. Or, in simpler terms: all values ultimately come down to pleasure and pain; all one must think about in moral conduct is how to maximize pleasure and minimize pain in general, not just for oneself. Mill complicated this somewhat by saying there were different kinds of pleasure of higher or lower quality: one would prefer to be “Socrates dissatisfied” than “a fool satisfied.” But the utilitarians urged that one must always look beyond one’s own immediate desires and consider the consequences at large. Hence this view is often described as “consequentialism.” Since Dewey’s approach also insists on taking consequences into account, it is frequently treated as a form of utilitarianism when acknowledged at all.
The relation of utilitarianism and Dewey’s position might be illustrated by the story of The Lorax. In Dr. Seuss’s story, once there was a land with lots of beautiful Truffula Trees until the old Once-ler comes along and discovers he can make Thneeds from their soft tufts. He chops down a tree, and immediately the Lorax pops out of the Truffula stump: “I am the Lorax. I speak for the trees. I speak for the trees for the trees have no tongues. And I’m asking you, sir, at the top of my lungs . . . What’s that THING you’ve made out of my Truffula tuft?” (Lorax). “Thneeds can be very useful,” the Once-ler says, “It’s a shirt. It’s a sock. It’s a glove. It’s a hat. But it has other uses far beyond that. You can use it for carpets. For pillows! For sheets! Or curtains! Or covers for bic
ycle seats!” (Lorax). The Thneeds turn out to be popular, and the Once-ler and his family begin to manufacture them, cutting down more and more trees. The Lorax keeps warning the selfish and shortsighted Once-ler. He speaks for the poor Brown Bar-ba-loots “who played in the shade in their Bar-ba-loot suits and happily lived, eating Truffula Fruits” (Lorax). But the Once-ler enlarges the factory: “I meant no harm. I most truly did not. But I had to grow bigger. So bigger I got. . . . I went right on biggering . . . selling more Thneeds. And I biggered my money, which everyone needs” (Lorax). More and more creatures are affected. The Swomee-Swans can’t sing because of the pollution. The Gluppity-Glupp from the factory is “glumping the pond where the Humming-Fish hummed” (Lorax). Soon the land is a waste, and the Lorax leaves only a pile of rocks with one word: “UNLESS” (Lorax).
In one sense, the Once-ler can be portrayed as the classic utilitarian. He is attempting to act to increase happiness in himself and the consumers of the Thneeds: the more Thneeds, the more happiness, and the Truffula Trees are the means to that. But what the story shows, of course, is that the Once-ler is not really thinking about the long-range consequences for everybody—for the whole ecosystem. The original environment supported a diversity of species: Brown-Bar-ba-loots, Swomee-Swans, and Humming-Fish. The quality of the air and water are affected. Although the Lorax is also thinking about consequences, he is thinking about the complexity of the world and the meaning of our actions in it. He is not motivated by “maximizing happiness” but by the ideal of acting responsibly for the sake of the whole environment. A utilitarian might argue that the Lorax is in fact just a better utilitarian than the Once-ler: the Lorax sees the long-range consequences better and is concerned for the happiness of other species. But the fact is that utilitarianism did promote rather narrow, materialistic values and supported the growth of capitalism with its vague ideas of promoting general happiness. A utilitarian would have calculated the maximum outcome of “happiness” rather than being genuinely concerned with the Bar-ba-loots and others. The Lorax is the voice of this general concern that overrides our desires. The Lorax, I contend, is actually a Deweyan ethicist, not least for his constant warning to “stop and think.” He is concerned for consequences, but not in the utilitarian sense at all. He engages in what Dewey calls “reflective morality.” He is concerned to show the meaning of the Once-ler’s actions. Consequences are used to reveal the meaning of the present situation. The utilitarian, in fact, subjects the present to an imagined future that never really comes—it recedes as he approaches. And often in practice this means that immediate, shortsighted ends are pursued in the dim belief that they will automatically create happiness for everyone. John Stuart Mill defended the value of maximum individual liberty in the belief that personal self-determination was what made most people happiest. The standard creed of capitalism is, by allowing everyone to pursue his own self-interest, the market will grow indefinitely, creating more goods at cheaper prices and leading to the happiness of all. It’s the “Once-ler philosophy.” On the other hand, Dewey says we must try to understand the possibilities of the present and act in a way that a meaningful future grows from it, one that sustains a variety of values.
We can contrast the deontologist with the Deweyan by briefly examining the stories of Horton Hears a Who! and Horton Hatches the Egg. A deontologist acts for the sake of duty pure and simple—“deontology” itself comes from the Greek for “duty,” deon. This was a central value in the ancient school of Stoicism and the Roman moralists. But the major representative is Immanuel Kant, whom we have already met. Evaluating consequences, Kant argues, are no guarantee one is doing what is right, nor are feelings of happiness or pleasure what gives worth to moral action or to a human life. Kant was concerned that an act, however noble it may seem outwardly, could ultimately be traced to self-love and seeking one’s own satisfaction. I may be generous, but do I not love myself in my act of generosity? Ought I give a needy person money simply because it makes me happy? A mother may feel happy caring for her child—but what if she does not? She may be like Mayzie. Mayzie is a lazy bird tired of hatching her egg. She gets Horton to sit on her egg because she needs a rest, and off she goes to Palm Beach. She doesn’t do her duty. So Kant is unimpressed by determining the ethical value of an action on the basis of what makes someone happy or not. It is the rule expressing the duty that determines if an act is moral. I must treat persons as beings of “infinite worth” and as “ends in themselves,” says Kant; that is, as having intrinsic value and being endowed with rights. Kant believes that we should look to moral or “practical” reason: determine what the rule you are thinking of following in a present situation is. Universalize it as if it were a law for all persons and see if it stands the test of being self-consistent. If so, then it is right and the “voice of duty” or, in Kant’s terms, the categorical imperative, enjoins it. But it is acting for the sake of duty, respect for the rule, not because of our feelings that is important.
In Horton Hears a Who! we have a story of a mindful elephant whose conscientiousness (and big ears) allow him to be aware of very small persons that others are not aware of at all. Because he alone can hear them, he makes a promise to protect them. One day as Horton is taking a bath in a pond, he thinks he hears a call for help. No one is around, but a small speck of dust, or rather someone on it, seems to be the source, “Some sort of a creature of very small size, Too small to be seen by an elephant’s eyes . . .” (Horton). Horton thinks this person is afraid of being blown into the pool, and so he carefully places the speck of dust on some clover. It would seem Horton is a good Kantian: he is treating another person as an end in himself or as having infinite worth: “A person’s a person no matter how small” (Horton). In trying to protect the speck from the other incredulous and careless animals, Horton hears the Whos—for that is what they are—tell him he saved a whole town, Who-ville. “You’ve saved all our houses, our ceilings and floors. You’ve saved all our churches and grocery stores” (Horton). Horton replies, “You’re safe now. Don’t worry. I won’t let you down” (Horton). But keeping this promise turns out to be quite difficult. Devious monkeys, the Wickersham Brothers, steal the clover and give it to Vlad Vlad-i-koff, an eagle, who flies away with it. Horton laboriously follows only to see it dropped in a field of clover. But he goes through it, clover by clover, until he finds the Whos on the “three millionth flower.” Who-ville has been badly shaken; everything needs repairing. But Horton promises, “Of course I will stick. I’ll stick by you small folks through thin and through thick” (Horton). But the animals—including all the Wickersham relatives—find Horton, threaten to tie him up, and boil the clover. Horton pleads for the Whos to make as much noise as they can in order to prove they exist. They try but do not succeed in making themselves heard until the last little Who (“a very small, very small shirker named Jo-Jo” [Horton]) joins in and “Their voices were heard!” (Horton). Horton smiles, “Do you see what I mean? . . . They’ve proved they ARE persons, no matter how small. Their whole world was saved by the Smallest of All” (Horton).
As in the case of The Lorax, in which the Lorax could be read as a sort of utilitarian, one could make a case for Horton being a Kantian deontologist. He respects persons as beings of inherent worth “no matter how small” or inconsequential. He makes a promise and keeps it, come hell or high water, as he does in Horton Hatches the Egg. But I would like to urge that this, too, would be to force a narrow interpretation where a wider one, Deweyan, would be more appropriate. One of the things that Dewey sees as crucial in the moral life is developing habits of conscientiousness—of carefully reflecting on aspects of a situation that may not at first glance be obvious. We can call this “The Who Factor.” The Whos are values that may easily be overlooked but which are as important as the evident ones. Like the Once-ler in The Lorax, the various disbelieving animals, like the Wickersham Brothers, are fundamentally thoughtless individuals. They act out of a narrow sense of what is and is not and do not go to t
he trouble of finding out if Horton is right before passing the judgment that there are no Whos. Nor does Horton carry out his duty with a cold rationality, doing duty for duty’s sake. Horton acts because he cares for the Whos. Kant would find this problematic. Just as Horton cares for the egg in Horton Hatches the Egg, in Horton Hears a Who!, he is devoted to preserving something that others have disregarded so that, by the end of the story, the world is richer for his success. The world at the end of Horton Hears a Who! is changed because a new group has been discovered and acknowledged. Horton has moreover taught the value of conscientiousness, not of following rules for their own sake. Whereas Kant would be suspicious of Horton’s feelings of concern and sympathy, Dewey would see them as good qualities of Horton’s character. As we proceed to look at Dewey’s analysis of moral deliberation and moral character, let us keep Horton in mind.
Unlike the utilitarians or the deontologists, Dewey does not believe that the spectrum of values can ultimately be measured in terms of one supreme value like pleasure or duty. He does not believe that ethics is concerned with finding the rule or rules by which each action may be morally measured. Ethics is woven into all aspects of human existence; we live ethical lives and this means that a variety of values enters in and that our life is the expression of character. One of the major problems we often face is in fact the conflict of values in our lives. For Dewey, we really are often in the situation of comparing apples to oranges or even to pineapples and cabbage. The issue is not capable of being reduced to so many units of happiness or pleasure, nor can it be solved by universalizing whatever rule we seem to be operating by because duties themselves come into conflict. One may try to figure out beforehand some artificial hierarchy of duties. But ethics cannot give us a little chart of which duty trumps which as if the moral life were a game of poker. Kant’s ethics simply cannot handle the fact that our duties come into conflict and this is a central feature of our moral existence. The best we can do, says Dewey, is to try to integrate and harmonize diverse values. But ultimately what we are concerned with is deciding about what meaning our moral life will embody.
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