Dr. Seuss and Philosophy - Jacob M. Held [94]
“Morals means growth of conduct in meaning . . .,” says Dewey. “It is all one with growing. Growing and growth are the same fact expanded in actuality or telescoped in thought. In the largest sense of the word, morals is education.”4 We can now see why Dewey thought education to be of such central importance to philosophy in general and ethics in particular. Strangely, he stands in company of only a few other major philosophers who have agreed on this point: Plato, Rousseau, and, perhaps, Aristotle (Aristotle’s Politics breaks off just as he brings up the topic). Dewey is close to Aristotle, especially in terms of his view that ethics is ultimately about moral character. With Aristotle, Dewey assigned a central place in ethics to the formation of the right habits. Whereas Aristotle tended to focus on habits to discern the “mean relative to oneself,” Dewey stressed the formation of habits of thoughtfulness, conscientiousness, and shared inquiry. This for him was the key to democracy—not a set of governmental principles. In a strange way Dewey is in agreement with Plato: the best society is that in which intelligence guides conduct. Plato, however, had indulged in a magnificent but dangerous hypothesis in his Republic. He had asked the question: “What would a society look like IF a science of justice existed?” He is often mistaken to have thought presumptuously THAT he actually possessed such a science, when it is absolutely clear he did not (Republic 506e). Dewey asks the question: “What habits should a society cultivate in which there is no finished science of morals?” His conclusion is, a society that is disposed to inquiry, exploration of possibilities, discussion, and criticism and reevaluation of prior ends in light of actual outcomes. It is a society that can grow intelligently.
The aim of moral education for Dewey is to become a moral self, to have a moral character. Insofar as the Aristotelian idea of “virtue ethics” has been a subject of philosophical interest in recent times, largely in light of the perceived dead-end debate between utilitarianism and deontological ethics, it would be more accurate to place Dewey along with Aristotle in the class of “virtue ethicists.” Virtue ethics focuses on the ideal of moral character, not specific rules or specific actions. One may donate a large sum of money to a worthy charity, but if one does it by accident or in order to gain popularity, the act has different moral significance than it does if one does it from pure generosity and compassion. It is the character that reveals the meaning of the act. If the Once-ler had been convinced by the Lorax that it was in his economic self-interest to save the Truffula Trees, he still would have been acting out of a selfish motive rather than one taking into account the needs of other creatures and the welfare of the environment.
The self should be wise or prudent, looking to an inclusive satisfaction and hence subordinating the satisfaction of an immediately urgent single appetite; it should be faithful in acknowledgement of the claims involved in its relations with others; it should be solicitous, thoughtful, in the award of praise and blame, use of approbation and disapprobation, and, finally, should be conscientious and have the active will to discover new values and to revise former notions.5
As for Aristotle, the self is the interwoven set of habits that provides the structure for our organized responses to situations. Habits are not passive tools but active powers; they project lines of action into the future. Some sets of habits simply replicate themselves in conduct. But other habits move us toward growth. Aristotle believed in a fixed essence of the species, whereas Dewey knew that life was an ongoing, open-ended process. Thus Dewey stressed the habits of growth as of key moral importance. The self is revealed in its actions; actions show what we truly and genuinely care about. Dewey dismisses the idea that haunted Kant: the possibility our most generous actions might spring from