A John Dewey source page

Originally published as:

John Dewey. "Morality is Social"  Human Nature and Conduct: An Introduction to Social Psychology. New York: Modern Library (1922)

Human Nature and Conduct
An Introduction to Social Psychology

Table of Contents

Table of Contents | Next

Introduction

Part 1: The Place of Habit in Conduct

• Section I: Habits as Social Functions
  Habits as functions and arts; social complicity; subjective factor.

• Section II: Habits and Will
  Active means; ideas of ends; means and ends; nature of character.

• Section III: Character and Conduct
  Good will and consequences; virtues and natural goods; objective and subjective morals.

• Section IV: Custom and Habit
  Human psychology is social; habit is conservative; mind and body.

• Section V: Custom and Morality
  Customs as standards; authority of standards; class conflict.

• Section VI: Habit and Social Psychology
  Isolation of individuality; newer movements

Part 2: The Place of Impulse in Conduct

• Section I: Impulses and Change of Habits
  Present interest in instincts; impulses as reorganizing.

• Section II: Plasticity of Impulse
  Impulse and education; uprush of impulse; fixed codes.

• Section III: Changing Human Nature
  Habits the inert factor; modification of impulses; war a social function; economic regimes as social products; nature of motives.

• Section IV: Impulse and Conflict of Habits
  Possibility of social betterment; conservatism.

• Section V: Classification of Instincts
  False simplifications; "self-love"; will to power; acquisitive and creative.

• Section VI: No Separate Instincts
  Uniqueness of acts; possibilities of operation; necessity of play and art; rebelliousness.

• Section VII: Impulse and Thought

Part 3: The Place of Intelligence in Conduct

• Section I: Habit and Intelligence
  Habits and intellect; mind, habit and impulse.

• Section II: The Psychology of Thinking
  The trinity of intellect; conscience and its alleged separate subject-matter.

• Section III: The Nature of Deliberation
  Deliberation as imaginative rehersal; preference and choice; strife of reason and passion; nature of reason.

• Section IV: Deliberation and Calculation
  Error in utilitarian theory; place of the pleasant; hedonistic calculus; deliberation and prediction.

• Section V: The Uniqueness of Good
  Fallacy of a single good; applied to utilitarianism; profit and personality; means and ends

• Section VI: The Nature of Aims
  Theory of final ends; aims as directive means; ends as justifying means; meaning well as an aim; wishes and aims

• Section VII: The Nature of Principles
  Desire for certainty; morals and probabilities; importance of generalizations.

• Section VIII: Desire and Intelligence
  Object and consequence of desire; desire and quiescence; self-deception in desire; desire needs intelligence; nature of idealism; living in the ideal.

• Section IX: The Present and Future
  Subordination of activity to result; control of future; production and consummation; idealism and distant goals.

Part 4: Conclusion

• Section I: The Good of Activity
  Better and worse; morality a process; evolution and progress; optimism; Epicureanism; making others happy.

• Section II: Morals are Human
  Humane morals; natural law and morals; place of science.

• Section III: What is Freedom?
  Elements in freedom; capacity in action; novel possibilities; force of desire.

• Section IV: Morality is Social
  Conscience and responsibility; social pressure and opportunity; exaggeration of blame; importance of social psychology; category of right; the community of religious symbol.

Notes

No notes

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