Human Nature and Conduct

Human Nature and Conduct

By John Dewey.

Table of Contents

1. Titlepage
2. Imprint
3. Preface
4. Introduction
5. Human Nature and Conduct
   1. Part I: The Place of Habit in Conduct
      1. I: Habits as Social Functions
      2. II: Habits and Will
      3. III: Character and Conduct
      4. IV: Custom and Habit
      5. V: Custom and Morality
      6. VI: Habit and Social Psychology
   2. Part II: The Place of Impulse in Conduct
      1. I: Impulses and Change of Habit
      2. II: Plasticity of Impulse
      3. III: Changing Human Nature
      4. IV: Impulse and Conflict of Habits
      5. V: Classification of Instincts
      6. VI: No Separate Instincts
      7. VII: Impulse and Thought
   3. Part III: The Place of Intelligence in Conduct
      1. I: Habit and Intelligence
      2. II: The Psychology of Thinking
      3. III: The Nature of Deliberation
      4. IV: Deliberation and Calculation
      5. V: The Uniqueness of Good
      6. VI: The Nature of Aims
      7. VII: The Nature of Principles
      8. VIII: Desire and Intelligence
      9. IX: The Present and Future
   4. Part IV: Conclusion
      1. I: The Good of Activity
      2. II: Morals Are Human
      3. III: What Is Freedom?
      4. IV: Morality Is Social
6. Endnotes
7. Colophon
8. Uncopyright

Imprint

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Preface

In the spring of 1918 I was invited by Leland Stanford Junior University to give a series of three lectures upon the West Memorial Foundation. One of the topics included within the scope of the Foundation is Human Conduct and Destiny. This volume is the result, as, according to the terms of the Foundation, the lectures are to be published. The lectures as given have, however, been rewritten and considerably expanded. An Introduction and Conclusion have been added. The lectures should have been published within two years from delivery. Absence from the country rendered strict compliance difficult; and I am indebted to the authorities of the University for their indulgence in allowing an extension of time, as well as for so many courtesies received during the time when the lectures were given.

Perhaps the subtitle requires a word of explanation. The book does not purport to be a treatment of social psychology. But it seriously sets forth a belief that an understanding of habit and of different types of habit is the key to social psychology, while the operation of impulse and intelligence gives the key to individualized mental activity. But they are secondary to habit so that mind can be understood in the concrete only as a system of beliefs, desires and purposes which are formed in the interaction of biological aptitudes with a social environment.

J. D.

February, 1921

Introduction

“Give a dog a bad name and hang him.” Human nature has been the dog of professional moralists, and consequences accord with the proverb. Man’s nature has been regarded with suspicion, with fear, with sour looks, sometimes with enthusiasm for its possibilities but only when these were placed in contrast with its actualities. It has appeared to be so evilly disposed that the business of morality was to prune and curb it; it would be thought better of if it could be replaced by something else. It has been supposed that morality would be quite superfluous were it not for the inherent weakness, bordering on depravity, of human nature. Some writers with a more genial conception have attributed the current blackening to theologians who have thought to honor the divine by disparaging the human. Theologians have doubtless taken a gloomier view of man than have pagans and secularists. But this explanation doesn’t take us far. For after all these theologians are themselves human, and they would have been without influence if the human audience had not somehow responded to them.

Morality is largely concerned with controlling human nature. When we are attempting to control anything we are acutely aware of what resists us. So moralists were led, perhaps, to think of human nature as evil because of its reluctance to yield to control, its rebelliousness under the yoke. But this explanation only raises another question. Why did morality set up rules so foreign to human nature? The ends it insisted upon, the regulations it imposed, were after all outgrowths of human nature. Why then was human nature so averse to them? Moreover rules can be obeyed and ideals realized only as they appeal to something in human nature and awaken in it an active response. Moral principles that exalt themselves by degrading human nature are in effect committing suicide. Or else they involve human nature in unending civil war, and treat it as a hopeless mess of contradictory forces.

We are forced therefore to consider the nature and origin of that control of human nature with which morals has been occupied. And the fact which