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AMERICAN SCIENCE SERIES
ETHICS
BY
JOHN DEWEY
Professor of Philosophy in Columbia University
AND
JAMES H. TUFTS
Professor of Philosophy in the University of Chicago
NEW YORK
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
London: GEORGE BELL AND SONS
1909
Copyright, 1908,
by
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
PREFACE
The significance of this text in Ethics lies in its effortto awaken a vital conviction of the genuine realityof moral problems and the value of reflective thoughtin dealing with them. To this purpose are subordinatedthe presentation in Part I. of historic material; the discussionin Part II. of the different types of theoreticalinterpretation, and the consideration, in Part III., of sometypical social and economic problems which characterizethe present.
Experience shows that the student of morals has difficultyin getting the field objectively and definitely beforehim so that its problems strike him as real problems. Conductis so intimate that it is not easy to analyze. It is soimportant that to a large extent the perspective for regardingit has been unconsciously fixed by early training.The historical method of approach has proved in theclassroom experience of the authors an effective methodof meeting these difficulties. To follow the moral lifethrough typical epochs of its development enables studentsto realize what is involved in their own habitual standpoints;it also presents a concrete body of subject-matterwhich serves as material of analysis and discussion.
The classic conceptions of moral theory are of remarkableimportance in illuminating the obscure placesof the moral life and in giving the student clues whichwill enable him to explore it for himself. But there isalways danger of either dogmatism or a sense of unrealitywhen students are introduced abruptly to the theoreticalideas. Instead of serving as tools for understanding the[Pg iv]moral facts, the ideas are likely to become substitutes forthe facts. When they are proffered ready-made, theirtheoretical acuteness and cleverness may be admired, buttheir practical soundness and applicability are suspected.The historical introduction permits the student to bepresent, as it were, at the social situations