Critique of Traditional Morality and Dualisms

Where it surfaces

• 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.

• The Nature of Aims

  The chapter critiques the dualism between fixed ends and means, and the separation of moral ideals from scientific inquiry, arguing that this renders ideals impotent.

• The Nature of Principles

  Dewey criticizes the traditional moral ambition for fixed, universal principles, the false dichotomy between absolute fixity and absolute looseness, and Kant's separation of reason from experience.

• Desire and Intelligence

  Dewey criticizes the separation of desire and thought, emotion and intellect, as a false dualism that leads to moral tragedy.

• The Present and Future

  Dewey rejects the dualism between present activity and future ends, arguing that traditional moralists wrongly treat the present as mere means to a fixed external goal.

• The Good of Activity

  Dewey rejects theories that identify morals with purification of motives, obedience to duty, or remote perfection, arguing they divert attention from actual conditions and consequences.

• Morals Are Human

  Dewey criticizes both supernatural morality and the dualism between the actual and the ideal, as well as the error of treating natural laws as moral norms, advocating instead for a humane, empirical approach.

• III: What Is Freedom?

  Dewey rejects the dualism between a fixed natural world and a free human will, arguing that uncertainty and contingency are genuine features of both nature and human experience.

• Morality Is Social

  Dewey criticizes the dualism between moral and non-moral conduct, the identification of morality with praise and blame, and the notion of an abstract 'Right' separate from social facts. He rejects the idea of a non-empirical conscience and arbitrary free will.