ABSTRACT
This chapter takes up Dewey’s account of moral ends by examining not only his own view but also his critical engagement with classical theories of ends, Hedonism, the Epicurean theory, and the Cynic school. It examines the relationship between thought and desire, especially the difference between inhibition and transformation of desire, as well as the distinction between thoughtful desire and desire “just as it first presents itself”; the distinction that Dewey, in discussing Mill, draws between the quality of an enduring satisfaction of the whole self and that of a transient satisfaction of some isolated element in the self; and Dewey’s critique of theories that, by separating moral goodness from interest, state “the negative for the sake of the negative,” thereby creating an obsession with guilt and its avoidance. To conclude, this chapter looks at Dewey’s most fundamental achievement in the chapter, the connection he establishes between reflection and ends. This has two facets: the role played by reflection as a factor that operates creatively to form new ends, and “the need to remake social conditions so that they will almost automatically support fuller and more enduring values.”
