It’s the Right Thing to Do – I Think
Harvard philosopher Hilary Putnam has argued that while Dewey’s pragmatism is a strong foundation for social ethics, it falls short as a means for individuals to answer questions about how they should act in a particular situation, or what they should believe – the questions through which we discover and become who we are. These are questions about what is the right thing to do at a given moment, and it is often the case that multiple options seem viable – it is not possible to eliminate, through some process of investigation or deduction, all but one option on the grounds that the others are obviously wrong or unsupportable, or that one response has no flaws while all others do. Putnam cites the case of Pierre, who must choose between leaving home to join the Resistance during World War II, or staying home to take care of his elderly and ailing mother. To a disinterested observer, both options seem viable, and there does not appear to be a rule or formula to settle the matter and provide an answer that would be universally agreed upon. “Neither of the alternatives he is considering is in any way stupid. Yet he cannot just flip a coin.”(1)
No matter what choice Pierre makes, there will be those who argue he should have made the other choice, and many will say that they can see the argument for both sides. This lack of a method to rationally derive a universally-applicable solution is not due merely to the problem’s complexity, but to the fact that the answer must be, in a sense, unique to Pierre – it is a solution that springs from and will further shape Pierre’s nature as an individual. Thus every aspect of his self, including his nonrational beliefs, emotions and instincts, is implicated in the decision; the solution must accommodate these unique factors. According to Putnam, even after the fact, there is a good chance that even Pierre will be unable to tell if he has made the right choice, and he might claim that he did even when he did not (or vice versa.)
Putnam wrote:
One of the reasons the Dewey’s recommendation to use intelligently guided experimentation in solving ethical problems does not really help in such a case is Dewey’s consequentialism. Pierre is not out to “maximize the good,” however conceived, in some global sense; he is out to do what is right. Like all consequentialist views, Dewey’s has trouble doing justice to considerations of right . . . Pierre wants to be Pierre . . . This is not the same thing as wanting to follow the “optimal policy”; or perhaps it is – perhaps the optimal policy in such a case is, in fact, to become who you are. But doing that is not something that the advice to use the “scientific method” can help you very much with.(2)
Instrumentalism is helpless to solve this problem, Putnam claims; it does not fall within the realm of social goods that he says Dewey argues can be found through intelligent, directed action. Rather, Putnam turns to William James’ essay “The Will to Believe,” in which James argues that in order to act in the world, one must often believe in advance of the evidence. In situations where a choice must be made, and in which rationality suggests that multiple options are viable, it is not only permissible to choose a course of action based on its ability to satisfy one’s emotions, instincts, and nonrational inclinations, but it is necessary to do so. If we do not sometimes choose a course of action based on its striking a chord with us or otherwise arousing our sympathy – without it just ‘feeling right’ – we will lack the motivation to act at all, or even to pursue rational justification. (Here Putnam cites the enthusiasm that scientists such as Einstein felt for their theories while they were still relatively unproven hypotheses, and which served as a motivating factor for the scientists to conduct the necessary experiments – without the initial belief, the ‘truth’ would not have been found.)
Dewey would agree that the problem is not simply one of maximizing social good or achieving the greatest satisfaction for the greatest number, as a strict utilitarian might argue – although Dewey would disagree that social good never enters the picture. From the perspective of the need of the individual to find a way to define himself, the question for Pierre can be rephrased as, ‘Which course of action will permit Pierre to have experiences and grow as a person?’ This is a question to which intelligence can be applied – not in the sense that Pierre should begin a series of experiments to support one hypothesis or the other; that would, indeed, be impractical. But Pierre can ask of himself how, based on prior situations, he can be expected to react to each scenario. Will he be so distracted by worrying about his mother that he will be an ineffective soldier, putting his life and the lives of others at risk? Will he resent his mother for frustrating his dreams of adventure and noble service, so that he withdraws into himself?
Self-knowledge can be supplemented by research already completed by others – life is not lived in laboratory conditions, and Dewey never argued that only research that meets the formal standards of the physical sciences is a legitimate example of empirical investigation. What have veterans of prior wars said about their experience? What have military experts said about the dangers and prospects of the Resistance? It is true that Pierre would have had to study himself earlier in his life to have some of the information available to him that would help him answer this question, but this does not seem unreasonable; if Pierre had absolutely no sense of who he is or what circumstances are conducive to his further growth, how could he have accumulated the nonrational inclinations that will lead him to believe one way or the other in advance of the evidence? Someone totally lacking self-knowledge would be someone totally lacking in experience, and one wonders if such a case is even possible.
Furthermore, it is not the responsibility of an ethical theory to provide a means for an individual to immediately absorb and comprehend an ethical system and make good ethical decisions – any system requires time and attention to absorb and integrate with one’s own thinking. It is during this time that one would expect Pierre to ask himself the sort of questions and make the intelligent observations of his own actions and experience that would provide him with a foundation of self-knowledge when the crisis situation hit. It is true that his nonrational inclinations and sympathies would play a role here – the decision would not be a cold or calculating one. But those nonrational elements of his self would be brought into the sphere of his intellectual life, integrated into his rational self-awareness in a way that would make him better able to answer the question than if he had to rely on nothing more than instinct. Presumably, too, he would investigate the assorted nonrational biases present in him, to determine whether any of them incline him to act in a way contrary to what evidence would indicate. Once aware of these biases, he would be motivated to attempt to overcome them. Putnam talks of scientists who advocate a hypothesis in advance of evidence because of their sympathy to it; presumably, however, these scientists have some kind of preliminary evidence to support the hypothesis, and no matter how sorry Einstein may have been for the Lord God, I doubt that he would have held to his theory of relativity if experimentation did not confirm it, and eventually its pull would lessen.
Furthermore, Putnam may be too quick to dismiss the role of the social good in personal, ethical decisions. In Pierre’s case, in which the very existence of society is at stake, this seems especially clear. If an open society committed to the free play of the intellect and rigorous self-criticism ceases to exist, Pierre and his mother will lose many, if not all, opportunities for growth and self-discovery. So if Pierre concludes that without him, the Resistance is doomed, there can be only one choice, and both self-interest and social interest dictate that choice. If Pierre instead concludes that his potential contribution to the Resistance is so minimal that it would barely be missed (if it were missed at all), while his mother would be in grave peril without him, then the social good is best served by him staying at home; for him to leave would be a selfish, destructive act, and would be the wrong choice for Pierre to make. Putnam might say that this does nothing to answer the question of what is ‘right for Pierre,’ although this seems beyond the argument that he makes – he is not saying that individual needs or desires should receive priority over social goods; rather he says that there are occasions in which social goods and empirical investigation are uninformative with regard to individual decisions. One of the striking features of the Pierre case is that it seems at first glance as though both options are socially beneficial; the dilemma is that both options appear morally correct. If an empirical consideration of social goods could show that one option or the other was not morally desirable, that would greatly alter the decision at hand.
Dewey argues – and Putnam appears to agree – that individual goods can only be reliably achieved within a healthy, conducive social environment – i.e., democracy. Thus the social good becomes the overall goal, not in the sense that individuality is crushed in the name of the many, but that ethical individuals will find opportunities for self-realization in working for others, and with others, to create the ideal environment in which they all find opportunities for further growth. As Robert Westbrook says in John Dewey and American Democracy:
“To aim at the general good did not mean to cultivate a desire for the general good, an indeterminate and vague end-in-view . . . Rather it required that desires that did aim at definite and concrete ends-in-view should be evaluated in terms of their consequences for all concerned.”(3)
In the present, in which this conception of ethics has not been commonly absorbed, attempting to follow it may in fact cause conflict – Pierre might conclude that he can do more good by joining the Resistance, but he also feels a special responsibility to his mother. Pierre does not live in an ideal world, and he does not know if anyone else will take care of his mother, and so he may choose to stay. While we all would likely understand that choice, we would also have to say that according to the system that Dewey and Putnam advocate, he is making the wrong choice; he is not acting in a way that promotes the good, and so he is not doing what is right.
Maybe Pierre does not want to promote or act according to the good – but in that case, of what possible value would an ethical system have in his decision making? Furthermore, what use does such an individual have to Putnam as a counterargument to Dewey? For Putnam’s criticism of Dewey’s instrumentalism and classification of social and individual goods to succeed, he needs an example of someone who would accept Dewey’s position, internalize it as a guide to action, and then not be able to respond to a given situation. This is what Putnam implies about the Pierre case. But if Pierre were a Deweyan with regard to ethics, he would have internalized the notion that self-realization is to be found in working for the social good; the question of ‘Who is Pierre?’ would be answered by the statement ‘Pierre is the person who will do what is necessary to build and advance the social good, and seek to have experiences of growth in the process.’
Now it is certainly true that there will be times when there seems to be insufficient evidence to be completely confident in our choice – perhaps Pierre can not tell exactly how much he would be able to help the Resistance, or how grave the threat is. There seem to be no shortage of such situations when it comes to issues that are obviously social as well – human beings are still attempting to find the optimal arrangement of social conditions. What kind of tax policy should we have? Who should make important decisions? How will we fund our schools? All of these are questions on which Putnam would have no trouble agreeing that Dewey’s theory has something to offer, even if there does not currently appear to be evidence that points to one conclusion over another. One of the purposes of the pragmatic movement, of course, is to eliminate the need for absolute certainty, to acknowledge that it is not only rational but necessary to act based on the best available information, and to be prepared to revise one’s conclusions if future experiences should so warrant. Perhaps this is what James and Putnam mean – that when the evidence is not conclusive, it takes an act of faith or imagination to act according to what appears to be the best evidence, because that evidence could change, leaving the agent in the position of having mistakenly done the “wrong” thing, or at least having to come up with a new response.
If this is the case, though, I do not see where they really disagree with Dewey, except that Dewey is perhaps more explicit about the need to empirically investigate such individual goods in the first place. Such an approach seems equally viable in the case of Pierre. And if it is indeed the case that the available evidence is such that, after rational consideration of both the overall circumstances and the needs of the individual, both options still seem equally viable, then the individual still has a viable answer – neither answer is wrong. In this case, one might argue that Dewey is at a loss to ‘break the tie’ – but there exists an equal chance that James will be equally unable to shed new light. Since the individual’s idiosyncrasies and nonrational characteristics have been brought into account in the rational consideration, it seems reasonable to say that both options have an equal pull on the individual’s sympathy – both options would be equally live. So while the individual must make some kind of choice, neither rational nor nonrational considerations will provide a clear direction. Believing and acting upon both is not an option, unless Pierre learns to be in two places at once. But Pierre could accept both actions as good, and conclude that as long as he does one of them, he will do the right thing. Thus, in the end, Pierre may be left with the coin – but also with the knowledge that using the coin is as right as he can hope to be.
1 Putnam, Hilary. Renewing Philosophy, page 190. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 1992.
2 Ibid., pages 190-91.
3 Westbrook, Robert. John Dewey and American Democracy, page 413. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press. 1991.
About Dave Thomer
Born and raised in Philadelphia. Studied philosophy at Fordham University in the Bronx, where I made many great friends and met my wonderful wife. We moved back to Philadelphia, where I studied philosophy some more and became a teacher. Online and off, I'm looking for ways that we can be better citizens and build stronger communities.