Abstract:

John Dewey provides a theory of the good and a theory of inquiry that presents a framework to help people determine what values one should seek in the future—how to determine them, and how to implement them. While Dewey uses terms such as Operational thinking, and reflective inquiry which are vague, his theory does provide a useful, but limited framework for both determining values, and how to implement these values in action. This essay explains Dewey’s construction of the good and how it differs from utilitarianism and then applies Dewey’s theory to find solutions to the issue of environmental decline as a result of anthropogenic forces—most notably global warming from the carbon capital complex. While there are some clear ways to implement Dewey’s theory of the good and theory of inquiry to this crisis it is very limited in determining concrete actions, and this lack of certainty along with the central idea that values are in constant iteration proves counterproductive for taking concrete action. In the context of anthropogenic climate change, we are working with a time constraint of roughly less than 30 years, and experimentation isn’t always moral or feasible as a method with this constraint. Therefore, I would argue that Dewey’s theories of the good and theory of inquiry aren’t practically applicable to problems on the large societal scale. While a useful guide, they aren’t an impactful method for solving such large issues. Such issues are called hyper-objects (Morton). There needs to be more intelligent design of systems and a method of inquiry that decenters humans in place of other object— in this case, the ecosystem, biosphere, and the earth itself. For this we need an imagined values of objects in our theory of the good.

Dewey’s philosophy covers many areas including metaphysics, and epistemology, but I would argue that the ideas about the good and determining the good are the most important because they lead to impactful decisions in the real world. Ethical questions concern how one should live, what is right, and how society should be organized. Furthermore, ethical values can impact millions of people through resulting decisions in politics, business, and can significantly impact the future of the human species. Dewey notes a gap between what we know about the natural world through science and the inability to translate this knowledge into values. “The problem with restoring integration and cooperation between man’s beliefs about the world, in which he lives, and his beliefs about the values and purpose that should direct his conduct is the deepest problem of modern life.”[1] Dewey clearly states this problem is vital and further implies that—philosophy shouldn’t solely exist in the realm of theory but must inform action. This essay investigates Dewey’s construction of the good and his theory of inquiry, interprets it, and then applies it to real world issues of environmental sustainability. Before diving into Dewey’s pragmatic ethical theory, it is important to understand other theories of the good such as utilitarianism since it is the predecessor of Dewey’s ethical theory and has some overlap.

Utilitarianism is a theory of value originating with Jeremy Bentham’s Hedonism which influenced John Stewart Mill’s political and moral philosophy. From a utilitarian perspective, people should make decisions that maximize what is good in society, and the utilitarian argues pleasure is the way to measure what is good.[2] So, from a utilitarian perspective people should make decisions that maximize pleasure and minimize pain for the most amount of people. For the utilitarian, this is what is considered good (what we should seek), and this is also often used synonymously with happiness. One objection to this theory is that killing in the name of saving many people could then be justified, which intuitively seems dangerous because it opens the door for people to justify horrendous acts in the name of bettering mankind. This is clearly related to the issue of scope. How does one know what timescale we are taking a snapshot of to measure happiness—a month, a year, or a century? There will be very different answers to moral dilemmas given these different timescales. If we want to maximize happiness in a year, we will increase use of fossil fuels and potentially harmful industry at the expense of future generation, yet if we make decisions based on the happiness of the population in 100 years, we may justify horrendous acts such as the one child policy to curb population growth which has been one of the most beneficial single policies for mitigating carbon output into the atmosphere. A second significant objection is that pleasure and pain can’t be measured outside of subjective experience and comparison, so there is no reliable way to compare happiness to decide between two actions. A third objection is that there isn’t a reliable way to know if an action will directly result in the greatest pleasure for the most amount of people. This is a problem because then purported actions that are based on utilitarianism could have many unintended consequences that have a counterproductive impact on aggregate good in society. It is important to be able to use an ethical theory to make decisions, and in this way utilitarianism falls short. Still, the idea of maximizing what is considered good in society seems to be a good idea that Dewey draws from in his pragmatic ethical theory.

Pragmatism is a philosophical movement whose founders include Charles Sanders Pierce, William James, and John Dewey—all 19^th century philosophers. Pragmatism developed during the scientific revolution and draws from important scientific works such as Darwin’s Origin of the Species. Scientific inquiry and Pragmatism had an influence on each other, and pragmatism in line with the scientific method places large value on individual experience through the senses and ties agency to knowledge attained through individual experience.[3] It takes away certainty in place of continual evolution of both knowledge and morality. In the moral realm, pragmatism generally advocates that people make decision based on pragmatic outcomes and doing things based on its usefulness. This connects directly to Dewey’s theory of value which he calls the Construction of the Good. The Pattern of Inquiry is his theory of knowledge which ties into his ethical theory because it shows how values can be discerned. Throughout pragmatic philosophy, there is a focus on process, change, and the flow of cause and effect and this is strongly considered in Dewey’s Construction of the Good and the Pattern of Inquiry.

In line with these general themes of pragmatic thinking, Dewey uses individual experience as a starting point for his conception of the good. He argues that people should use desirable experiences with critical reflection to determine values we should try to maintain or seek in the future. He states that “Operational thinking needs to be applied to the judgment of values just as it has now finally been applied in the conception of physical objects.”[4] Here Dewey argues we determine possible values through applying operational thinking to individual experience. This is a subtle critique of utilitarianism for being too reliant of pleasure and pain as absolute and complete indicators of what should be sought in the future. Reiterated in another way, Dewey believes that we should “regard our direct and original experiences of things liked and enjoyed as only possibilities of values to be achieved.”[5] Dewey observes that just because something is pleasurable, it doesn’t make it inherently good, and just because we want something in the future because it is pleasurable, doesn’t mean it should be a value or something to necessarily seek. This is the distinction between function and status.[6] Dewey argues that we need more critical thinking about our good experiences to determine if they should be placed on the level of desirable values. Dewey seeks to clarify his theory later in The Construction of the Good and in The Pattern of Inquiry. Dewey’s ethical theory is often criticized as effectively being the same as Utilitarianism, since it is still seeking to maximize good in society and uses pleasure as indicators of what is good. Furthermore, it is vague and there isn’t a clearly specific framework to find values and use these values to make decisions. Still, Dewey’s theory of values does differ from utilitarianism.

The clearest way Dewey’s ethical theory differs from utilitarianism is that it doesn’t simplify what is considered good to pleasure and the mitigation of pain. “Operational thinking” is a vague term though and at first it isn’t clear how this is implemented into determining values or used to make decisions. It seems at first as if the pragmatic ethical framework for making decisions is simply reflecting on good enjoyable experiences and then asking oneself “should I seek this in the future?” “Is it good for me and for Society?” These questions aren’t unconditionally advocated by Dewey, yet this is what I imagine some of them would be. In the pattern of inquiry Dewey does emphasizes the importance of collective inquiry[7] which in a way uses the experience of as many people as possible to be part of the “Operational thinking.” This seeks to consider what people value as good and use this information along with critical thinking to make value judgments. The method of this can be seen in the Pattern of Inquiry where Dewey provides a framework for determining how to determine values and make decisions.

To determine these values and make decisions, there needs to be a framework for discovering these values and then determining action. In the Pattern of Inquiry, Dewey seeks to lay out such a framework. The Pattern of Inquiry that Dewey lays out is along the lines of experiential learning. As, Dewey explains, “As in the case of these other forms, they originate out of experiential material, and when constituted introduce new ways of operating with prior materials, which ways modify the material out of which they develop.” In this way Dewey argues that all knowledge comes out of experience and that this knowledge is constantly being improved upon as we have more experiences. One distinction to make in Dewey’s theory of knowledge is that he bases his epistemology on radical empiricism as opposed to a-priori thinking. While a-priori thinking is a way to determine truth by building up from absolute knowledge such as Descartes building his entire epistemology form the single (to him infallible) truth “I think therefore I am.” Dewey takes a purely empirical approach which uses experience, observation, and continual improvement.

The real question of this section is how to use a pragmatic framework to figure out how to determine what actions are necessary to mitigate anthropogenic climate change. More specifically this section determines how different scales of society should act based on this interpretation of Dewey’s pragmatic value theory. Thanks to the scientific method we have learned a lot about cause and effect in the natural world in the natural sciences. Using the scientific method, we know that climate change as a result of human industrial action is real, and that it will cause significant geological shifts in the future which are already being felt now. Without diving into the science of climate change, the scientific approach is very pragmatic because it involves making observations and then interpreting those observations. While many of these observations aren’t directly experienced through the senses, they are using some tools that allow us to observe things we would not normally be able to observe—in effect this use of tools extends our observation capabilities and thus our ability to understand and predict the natural world. While Dewey notes that understanding the truths of the natural world doesn’t give us guidance for how things should be, when we compare how we think the world should be with how we think the world is, we can better keep on track or attempt to act to change the future more in alignment with our values.

Having a consensus on what we value, and how we want the world to be in the future based on these values is necessary to build a better world. From experience we learn what we want to increase in society, and we learn what experiences we want. We should use heuristic experiences like veil of ignorance to determine the kind of world we want to live in and then can reverse engineer values.[8] Using these discovered values, we can imagine a world that optimizes these values and write out specific aspects of this world. Once we have a shared imagination of a desirable future, we can use scientific modeling (although limited) and critical thinking (also limited) to have little experiments with reflections to find what best optimizes for that lifestyle or future. We already do this to some degree with democracy, although there is still lots of conflict over values and the questions of how.[9]

One pragmatic heuristic method for determining what we want the world to look like is the Veil of Ignorance which is a political theory of justice that John Rawls proposed. In the Veil of ignorance, you imagine yourself looking in on the world before you are born, knowing that you can be born anywhere under any circumstance. Knowing this how would you want the world to be like? Likely not with lots of poverty, inequality and suffering. This is a method that tries to use selfish desire to make decisions for overall societal equality and good. This could very well fall under what Dewey means by “intelligent reflection on the consequences” to determine value—what to seek in the future.

I would argue that we already generally agree on many of the most important values—we generally don’t want war, we want to maximize happiness and the quality of life, we tend to agree that we want more justice and equality, and we inherently want to succeed and to feel a sense of fulfilment in both career and relationships. Yet there is an issue of getting on the same terms of how to get there. This is due to not fully understanding the consequences of our actinons to a full extent which was an issue with utilitarianism. Without clear belief and understanding that a certain action will have a certain consequence, we can’t figure out how to act. Dewey’s Pattern of Inquiry and Theory of the Good are steps in the direction of learning how to get on the same page. Consensus also generally extends to not wanting to destroy our earth or make it less habitable in the future. There is enough consensus about this issue of anthropogenic climate change and this consensus of value should give us unity and a path towards decision making. Yet this doesn’t appear to be the case with the inability of the political realm to mobilize due to difficult tradeoffs.[10] The major corporations disproportionately causing climate change lobby despite knowing the effects of their actions and politicians who want to transition to green energy face the tradeoff of economic catastrophe with a shift to green energy sources, or environmental catastrophe as a result of staying reliant on fossil fuels.

Dewey argues that a moral theory must be able to direct action. He notes that any religiously adhered to principles don’t get at true values, which extends to Kant’s categorical imperative and to the utilitarian ethic of valuing pleasure as the ultimate good. Rather Dewey views experience as an indicator of what could be good. It is also a continual process of adjusting and improving values. For this reason, it provides a good general framework for determining values and actions yet doesn’t get into the difficult questions on a smaller scale. Questions about tradeoffs, and questions about how to act with unintended consequences are not explained or addressed by Dewey so I would argue that this makes his theory of the good not practically useful to solve the issue of anthropogenic climate change. Retrospectively Dewey’s theory maps out how we have sought to address climate change as a society, yet I would argue that there needs to be a more nuance method for determining how to act—in relation to specific issues and in the case of negative externalities and trade-offs. While specific groups solving the more specific aspects of climate change today likely still falls under Dewey’s method of inquiry, the inquiry itself isn’t practically applicable without specificity—the key that it is lacking. Realistically, a general theory like Dewey’s would be too difficult to reach all the specific cases under environmental sustainability since it is such a large scale integrated issues— too complex to be applied.[11] Consequently, it is understandable that Dewey couldn’t make his theory of the good more specific. The essence of Dewey’s theory is very profound and useful—observation and experience are the bedrock of knowledge so even bringing this to light as he argued for, has served the modern age in a great way.

Sources

Thayer, H. S. Pragmatism, the Classic Writings. Hackett Pub. Co., 1989.

Anomaly, Jonathan, Geoffrey Brennan, Michael C. Munger, and Geoffrey Sayre-McCord. Philosophy, Politics, and Economics: An Anthology, 2016. Print.

Scranton, Roy. Learning to Die in the Anthropocene: Reflections on the End of a Civilization. 2015. Print.

Morton, Timothy. Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology After the End of the World. 2013. Internet resource.

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[1] Thayer, H. S. Pragmatism, the Classic Writings. Hackett Pub. Co., 1989.  

[2] Anomaly, Jonathan, Geoffrey Brennan, Michael C. Munger, and Geoffrey Sayre-McCord. Philosophy, Politics, and Economics: An Anthology, 2016. Print.

[3] Thayer, H. S. Pragmatism, the Classic Writings. Hackett Pub. Co., 1989.  

[4] Thayer, H. S. Pragmatism, the Classic Writings. Hackett Pub. Co., 1989.

[5] Thayer, H. S. Pragmatism, the Classic Writings. Hackett Pub. Co., 1989.

[6] Thayer, H. S. Pragmatism, the Classic Writings. Hackett Pub. Co., 1989.

[7] Thayer, H. S. Pragmatism, the Classic Writings. Hackett Pub. Co., 1989.

[8] Anomaly, Jonathan, Geoffrey Brennan, Michael C. Munger, and Geoffrey Sayre-McCord. Philosophy, Politics, and Economics: An Anthology, 2016. Print.

[9] Scranton, Roy. Learning to Die in the Anthropocene: Reflections on the End of a Civilization. 2015. Print.

[10]  Scranton, Roy. Learning to Die in the Anthropocene: Reflections on the End of a Civilization. 2015. Print.

[11] Morton, Timothy. Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology After the End of the World. 2013. Internet resource.