- Dewey’s Conception of Philosophy
- Dewey’s Naturalistic Metaphysics
- Dewey, Whitehead, and Process Metaphysics
- Pragmatist Portraits of Experimental Intelligence by Peirce, James, Dewey, and Others
- Dewey, Rorty, and Brandom: The Challenges of Linguistic Neopragmatism
- Pragmatist Innovations, Actual and Proposed: Dewey, Peirce, and the Pittsburgh School
- Dewey and Anti-Representationalism
- Dewey’s Radical Conception of Moral Cognition
- Dewey on the Authority and Legitimacy of Law
- Beyond Moral Fundamentalism: John Dewey’s Pragmatic Pluralism in Ethics and Politics
- The Starting Point of Dewey’s Ethics and Sociopolitical Philosophy
- Dewey and Du Bois on Race and Colonialism
- John Dewey and Pragmatist Feminist Philosophy
- Dewey’s Pragmatic Politics: Power, Limits, and Realism About Democracy as a Way of Life
- Dewey, Addams, and Design Thinking: Pragmatist Feminist Innovation for Democratic Change
- Dewey and the Quest for Certainty in Education
- Derridean Poststructuralism, Deweyan Pragmatism, and Education
- Dewey, the Ethics of Democracy, and the Challenge of Social Inclusion in Education
- John Dewey’s Conception of the University
- Dewey’s <i>Art as Experience</i> in the Landscape of Twenty-First Century Aesthetics
- Dewey, Adorno, and the Purpose of Art
- Dewey, Pragmatism, Technology
- Dewey’s Chicago-Functionalist Conception of Logic
- Dewey, Habermas, and the Unfinished Project of Modernity in <i>Unmodern Philosophy and Modern Philosophy</i>
- Confucianism and Deweyan Pragmatism: A Dialogue on Becoming Persons
- Two-Way Internationalization: Education, Translation, and Transformation in Dewey and Cavell
- Experimental Democracy for China: Dewey’s Method
- John Dewey’s Debt to William James
- Mead, Dewey, and Their Influence in the Social Sciences
- Idealism and Religion in Dewey’s Philosophy
- Philosophy and the Mirror of Culture: On the Future and Function of Dewey Scholarship
- Dewey and Public Philosophy
- Dewey and Environmental Philosophy
- Dewey and Bioethics
Abstract and Keywords
Drawing on unpublished and published sources from 1926 to 1932, this chapter builds on John Dewey’s naturalistic pragmatic pluralism in ethical theory. A primary focus is “Three Independent Factors in Morals,” which analyzes good, duty, and virtue as distinct categories that in many cases express different experiential origins. The chapter suggests that a vital role for contemporary theorizing is to lay bare and analyze the sorts of conflicts that constantly underlie moral and political action. Instead of reinforcing moral fundamentalism via an outdated quest for the central and basic source of normative justification, we should foster theories with a range of idioms and emphases which, while accommodating monistic insights, better inform decision-making by opening communication across diverse elements of moral and political life, placing these elements in a wider context in which norms gain practical traction in nonideal conditions, and expanding prospects for social inquiry and convergence on policy and action.
Keywords: Dewey, pragmatism, ethics, ethical pluralism, ethical monism, moral fundamentalism, wicked problems, pragmatic pluralism, naturalism, moral imagination
Steven Fesmire is Professor of Philosophy and Environmental Studies at Green Mountain and he chairs the philosophy program. His public philosophy work has appeared in places such as Salon, Huffington Post, USA Today, The Conversation, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Humanist, The Key Reporter, Education Week, and Vermont Public Radio. He is the author of Dewey (Routledge Press, 2015), winner of a 2015 Choice “Outstanding Academic Title” award. He is also the author of John Dewey and Moral Imagination: Pragmatism in Ethics (Indiana University Press, 2003), winner of a 2005 Choice “Outstanding Academic Title” award.
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- Dewey’s Conception of Philosophy
- Dewey’s Naturalistic Metaphysics
- Dewey, Whitehead, and Process Metaphysics
- Pragmatist Portraits of Experimental Intelligence by Peirce, James, Dewey, and Others
- Dewey, Rorty, and Brandom: The Challenges of Linguistic Neopragmatism
- Pragmatist Innovations, Actual and Proposed: Dewey, Peirce, and the Pittsburgh School
- Dewey and Anti-Representationalism
- Dewey’s Radical Conception of Moral Cognition
- Dewey on the Authority and Legitimacy of Law
- Beyond Moral Fundamentalism: John Dewey’s Pragmatic Pluralism in Ethics and Politics
- The Starting Point of Dewey’s Ethics and Sociopolitical Philosophy
- Dewey and Du Bois on Race and Colonialism
- John Dewey and Pragmatist Feminist Philosophy
- Dewey’s Pragmatic Politics: Power, Limits, and Realism About Democracy as a Way of Life
- Dewey, Addams, and Design Thinking: Pragmatist Feminist Innovation for Democratic Change
- Dewey and the Quest for Certainty in Education
- Derridean Poststructuralism, Deweyan Pragmatism, and Education
- Dewey, the Ethics of Democracy, and the Challenge of Social Inclusion in Education
- John Dewey’s Conception of the University
- Dewey’s <i>Art as Experience</i> in the Landscape of Twenty-First Century Aesthetics
- Dewey, Adorno, and the Purpose of Art
- Dewey, Pragmatism, Technology
- Dewey’s Chicago-Functionalist Conception of Logic
- Dewey, Habermas, and the Unfinished Project of Modernity in <i>Unmodern Philosophy and Modern Philosophy</i>
- Confucianism and Deweyan Pragmatism: A Dialogue on Becoming Persons
- Two-Way Internationalization: Education, Translation, and Transformation in Dewey and Cavell
- Experimental Democracy for China: Dewey’s Method
- John Dewey’s Debt to William James
- Mead, Dewey, and Their Influence in the Social Sciences
- Idealism and Religion in Dewey’s Philosophy
- Philosophy and the Mirror of Culture: On the Future and Function of Dewey Scholarship
- Dewey and Public Philosophy
- Dewey and Environmental Philosophy
- Dewey and Bioethics