Abstract

A problem of paramount importance to understanding John Dewey’s ethics is to clarify his conception of judgment and his distinction between judgments and propositions. Depending upon how one interprets him on this matter, different answers suggest themselves to some of the most basic questions underlying his ethical theory, particularly those dealing with the relationship between science and ethics, the relationship between practical judgments and descriptive statements, and the differentiae of moral and scientific judgments within the genus practical judgment. Oversimplified answers are usually given to these, the stock interpretation being that he believes that ethics is reducible to science, that practical judgments are descriptive and hence that moral judgments are essentially scientific in nature. Although he undeniably says much to invite such an interpretation, it nonetheless fails to do justice to his considered view, and a probe of his account of the nature of judgments and propositions reveals that he views the whole relationship of moral to scientific judgments, hence of ethics to science, in a different light than is generally supposed. In consequence, much of his ethics needs reappraisal, particularly as having relevance to topics in the forefront of contemporary British and American ethical thought.