Themes & patterns

Human Nature and Conduct

Dewey argues that habits, not innate instincts or rational deliberation, are the primary drivers of human conduct, shaped by social customs and environments.

Part I: The Place of Habit in Conduct

Dewey argues that habits are the primary units of conduct, shaping character and moral action, and that they are formed through social customs and environmental conditions.

Habits as Social Functions

Habits are presented as acquired dispositions that incorporate environmental forces, functioning like physiological processes or arts, and are the basis of all conduct.

Habits and Will

Dewey redefines habit as an acquired predisposition that is projective, dynamic, and constitutes the self, emphasizing that habits are the will and rule our thoughts and desires.

III: Character and Conduct

Dewey argues that will is constituted by habits, which incorporate the environment and project into consequences, making habit the core of character and conduct.

Custom and Habit

Dewey emphasizes that customs precede and shape individual habits, and that habit is the primary mechanism of social continuity.

Human Nature and Conduct

The chapter emphasizes that moral judgments and character are products of social conditions, not fixed internal principles.

Habits as Social Functions

Dewey argues that personal traits and moral dispositions are functions of social situations, and that changing character requires changing objective conditions, not just inner intentions.

Custom and Habit

The chapter argues that morality is inherited through social customs, not individually invented, and that the social group sets the conditions for personal habit formation.

Custom and Morality

The chapter emphasizes that customs constitute moral standards and that individual conduct is woven into existing social patterns, with reflection arising from conflicts among customs.

I: Impulses and Change of Habit

The chapter argues that the meaning of impulses and the diversity of moral codes depend on social conditions and the responses of others.

III: Changing Human Nature

The chapter shows how social institutions and expectations shape and crystallize impulses into dominant habits, using the example of war and the wage-system as social patterns woven from instinctive activities.

Custom and Habit

Dewey contrasts blind habit with intelligent thought, and criticizes the separation that leaves habit routine and thought ineffective.

Custom and Morality

Dewey distinguishes between routine habit and intelligent habit (art), arguing that reflective intelligence emerges from social customs and can reorganize them, serving as an experimental and creative force.

Habit and Social Psychology

The chapter introduces impulse as the beginning of individuality in mind, arising from conflict of habits and leading to deliberate efforts to transform customs and environment.

Part II: The Place of Impulse in Conduct

Impulse is presented as a crucial force that breaks the inertia of habit and opens the door for intelligent reconstruction of conduct.

I: Impulses and Change of Habit

Impulses are described as 'pivots' for reorganizing habits and as agencies of deviation, essential for understanding social transition and reform.

Plasticity of Impulse

Argues that impulse, when intelligently directed, can reorganize habits and rejuvenate society from within.

Part I: The Place of Habit in Conduct

Dewey critiques the dualistic separation of will from habit, mind from body, and individual from environment, which he sees as foundational to traditional moral philosophy.

III: Character and Conduct

Dewey criticizes the separation of motive and act, inner and outer, subjective and objective, arguing that these dualisms stem from ignoring the projective force of habit.

V: Classification of Instincts

Dewey attacks the dualism between self-love and altruism, and the fixed classification of instincts, arguing they are artificial and hinder moral growth.

No Separate Instincts

Dewey criticizes the dualism between work and play, useful and useless, and the Puritanical distrust of art, arguing that art and play are moral necessities.

Habit and Intelligence

Dewey critiques the philosophical fallacy of universalizing specific ends, targeting Aristotle, Spencer, Kant, and others for positing static perfection as an ideal.

The Psychology of Thinking

Dewey rejects the separation of moral knowledge from natural human processes, opposing intuitionist theories of conscience.

I: Impulses and Change of Habit

Dewey discusses how infants' impulses are educated by adults with formed habits, and how this process can either reproduce or transform existing customs.

Plasticity of Impulse

Critiques education that instills 'moral' habits without understanding, contrasting it with growth-oriented learning.

Impulse and Conflict of Habits

Dewey presents education of the young as the chief means of continuous, graded, economical improvement and social rectification, while criticizing existing schooling as a tool of nationalistic and economic regimes.

No Separate Instincts

The plasticity of impulse in youth is implied; the chapter discusses how social conditions shape the expression of impulses, which has implications for education.

Morality Is Social

Dewey emphasizes that moral education requires understanding social forces and providing objective analysis of conduct, rather than relying on blame, punishment, or appeals to a ready-made conscience. He links defective moral standards to defective social education.

Habits and Will

The chapter critiques magical thinking in morals and politics, arguing that genuine freedom requires intelligent control of means and recognition that habits are active means, not passive tools.

III: Character and Conduct

The chapter emphasizes that moral deliberation involves experimental modification of habits in response to changing conditions, not arbitrary choice or fixed ideals.

Plasticity of Impulse

Distinguishes true liberation through impulse-guided habit change from romanticized spontaneity.

Impulse and Conflict of Habits

Dewey contrasts intelligent direction with blind antagonistic struggles, advocating for the use of released impulses to form harmonious habits adapted to new situations, rather than relying on exhortations or unembodied ideals.

Impulse and Thought

True freedom is not blind spontaneity but the intelligent use of impulse to reorganize habit and create new ends.

Part III: The Place of Intelligence in Conduct

Dewey argues that genuine freedom is achieved through intelligent deliberation that reorganizes habits and impulses, not through arbitrary choice or mere impulse.

Habit and Social Psychology

Dewey argues that habit is inherently social, formed through adjustment to environing conditions, especially the activities of others, and that social psychology must abandon the premise of separate, independent minds.

Habits as Social Functions

Dewey emphasizes that moral judgment should focus on future consequences and the modification of conditions, not on retrospective blame or punishment.

Part III: The Place of Intelligence in Conduct

Dewey emphasizes that moral judgment is forward-looking, focusing on the consequences of actions and the imaginative rehearsal of possible outcomes.

Deliberation and Calculation

Dewey reframes moral judgment as the ongoing appraisal of the tendency of present acts, using imaginative foresight to discern meaning rather than to predict fixed outcomes.

The Uniqueness of Good

Dewey emphasizes that moral deliberation is about discovering the consequences of competing impulses and habits, not calculating fixed quantities of pleasure.

The Present and Future

Moral judgment involves projecting future consequences to appraise present significance, but the end is the enrichment of present activity, not a remote goal.

The Good of Activity

Moral judgment is about the better-or-worse quality of acts, based on observation of conditions and outcomes, and is subject to revision.