ABSTRACT
Chapter 10 can be read as a general introduction to the second part of Ethics. The core of the chapter lays in Dewey’s criticism of the common presupposition of most other moral theories, namely, that they divide human action into two parts, the inner and the outer, motives and consequences, and character and overt conduct. While Dewey argues against this anti-dualistic line of thought from the 1908 edition of Ethics to the 1932 Ethics, he also focuses on another hidden presupposition of moral philosophy, “moral atomism.” Moral atomism says that we can judge the moral value of a given act by considering only this particular act, whether from the point of view of motives or consequences, without placing it within the whole line of conduct of an agent. Traditional moral theories have been dualistic because they were first atomistic in this sense. The solution Dewey proposes to overcome both presuppositions at once is to reconstruct both character and conduct, motives and consequences, in terms of habits, considered as general ways of behavior. All in all, this chapter deals with the changes that affect our moral reasoning when we understand habits at the center of reflective as well as customary morality.
