Good Habits- Establishing a Contemporary Pragmatic Praxis From the Writings of John Dewey

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Good Habits:Establishing a contemporary pragmatic praxis from the writings of John Dewey

Phillip QuinteroMA SeminarOctober 2011Professor Deva Woodly



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“Society, as a real whole, is the normal order”

John Dewey, Ethics of Democracy1

In The Public and Its Problems, John Dewey is moved to identify what he sees as a

troubling trend in American politics. He argues that the public has been “eclipsed,” and

that what we now think of as democratic practice is in fact a far cry from what we mean

by Democracy. In what follows, I clarify several points about Dewey’s analysis,

specifically in terms of the characteristics of American Pragmatism.

Dewey’s Pragmatic Diagnosis

I. Consequentialism

I find it useful to understand Dewey’s diagnosis—what he calls the eclipse of the

public—in two distinct but related registers. The first, and where we should begin, is in

the world we can observe. In this approach, traditionally associated with social

pragmatism, we are obliged to start from observations about what constitutes the political

1 “Ethics of Democracy” in The Early Works of John Dewey 1882-1898. Ed. George Axtell and Jo Ann



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as it is articulated through practice. Here we find Dewey’s unique perspective on the very

familiar lament that democratic politics in the United States have, in modern times, fallen

into disuse and atrophied.2

Exemplifying visible manifestations of this general “unfitness” of the public, Dewey

cites diminishing voter participation. Dewey writes, in 1927, “the number of voters… is

steadily decreasing… the ratio of actual to eligible voters is now about one-half.”3 The

importance of voting to the functional model of democratic polities is hardly in need of

explanation: Besides the important formal role a ballot plays in carrying the will of the

peoples to their representative government, we can look to the large energies devoted to

the study of electoral processes. Understanding and forecasting the winds of voter

participation constitutes a large part of contemporary thought about American political

practice.4 It was a preoccupation of Dewey’s from his earliest work. What is important for

the pragmatic perspective is that we think of the role of voter participation both as a

consequence and, when it is taken note of by political actors, as having consequences of

its own.

This consequentialism is the hallmark of Dewey’s writing about social facts. In The

Public and Its Problems, he goes on to lend the same perspective to phenomena like the rise

of private interest in political decision-making, the reliance on extra-legal intermediary

Boydston. (Southern Illinois University Press: Carbondale) v.1, page 232 (hereafter ED)2 It would be an illuminating project to place Dewey’s diagnosis of modern democracy among those similarthoughts put forth by Tocqueville, Lippmann, Arendt, and Habermas, for example.3 John Dewey, The Public and its Problems (Athens: Swallow Press, Ohio University Press, H Holt 1927), 117.(Hereafter P&P)



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groups to conduct politics, the corruption of elected officials, the inefficacy of the three

branches of government to work together, and other observations which make it hard to

say that the public, in any meaningful way, is empowered to govern itself.

The theoretical commitment here is that the worth of an action, institution, or

practice is to be judged in light of the consequences it has. Consequences here are broadly

understood as results that affect people. This means that a priori investigations, such as

formal logic, will always fall short—particularly in considerations of achieving a desired

outcome. Consequentialism leads Dewey to reject many classical notions of the political.

Dewey makes a point, for instance, of calling out theorists who conceive of a social body

as a mere mass of individuals. This liberal-individualist interpretation of human political

behavior is “equivalent to the destruction of society.”5 This (conceptual) destruction is a

result of the reification enacted by dealing with groups of people as “numerical

aggregates,”6 in that “the nonsocial individual is an abstraction arrived at by imagining

what man would be if all his human qualities were taken away.”7 A philosophy like that of

Hobbes, for example, struggles against a false problem—it tries to bestow some rational

order (or rationalization of apparent disorder) where associated activity has, for human

history, always simply been the case.8

4 Census data suggests that there was a further decline in voter participation starting in the second half of the Twentieth Century, leading scholars like Michael P. McDonald to problematize the figures that document thisapparent rise and decline.5 ED 2326 Dewey refers to the work of Sir Henry Maine and theories of “the rule of the many”, which he associates with Hobbes as well as with a misreading of Aristotle (ED 229).7 ED 2328 See “Nature, Life and Body-Mind” from Experience and Nature. Source: The Essential Dewey v.1(Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1998), 136.



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Dewey’s vehement resistance to positing causal explanatory powers does not imply

that his observed phenomena—like the diminished voter turnout—are irreducible,

arcane, or conceptually inert. They share a common thread, according to Dewey, in that

they are all consequences of a broader trend by which the power of the public has been

eclipsed. In this sense, they provide a useful way at examine the changes in associated

activity over time. Dewey provides the most elegant defense of such a perspective in the

words with which this paper opens. He considers this a historical point of view, but is

quick to qualify that, “In taking the distinctively historical point of view we do not

derogate from the important and even superior claims of democracy as an ethical and

social ideal” (P&P 83). This leads to the second way in which I propose to understand

him.

II. Democracy as Ethical Ideal

This “second way” in which we should address Dewey’s diagnosis of such

consequences resonates in the register of ethics. Dewey’s ethics begin from the simple

assertion that that humans are, by nature, social creatures:

Conjoint, combined, associated action is a universal trait of the behavior of things.Such action has results. Some of the results of human collective action are perceived,

that is, they are noted in such ways that they are taken account of. Then there arisepurposes, plans, measures and means, to secure consequences which are liked andeliminate those which are found obnoxious. Thus perception generates a commoninterest; that is, those affected by the consequences are perforce concerned in conductof all those who along with themselves share in bringing about the results… Now follows the hypothesis. Those indirectly and seriously affected for good or for evil



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form a group distinctive enough to require recognition and a name. The nameselected is the Public.9

In light of this passage, we can see that it is only through the consequentialist point

of view that we can see the ethical principle involved in the notion of humans as

inherently social. Dewey’s ethics are radical in the ancient sense of that word—the root of

human experience is one of community, and the question of proper nature is the same for

the individual as it is for the community. This too, reflects the idea of a social organism,

where the parts and the whole are interdependent.

The basic insight here is that of common interest. The good for the individual,

defined as any kind of desired outcome, is always already intertwined with the interests of

someone else. One notable consequence of the fact of common interest is that societies

care for children. In Dewey’s eyes, this supports the organic model of society and the

inherent sociality of the individual.

This ethical ideal is not simply the acknowledgment of something like social

mechanics of inertia and chain reactions. Common interests must me managed, or the

community (and therefore, in a way, the individual as well) will dissolve. Humans are

capable of just such a system; this is how Dewey understands the concept of the state. He

proposes that “the perception of consequences which are projected in important ways

beyond the persons and associations directly concerned in them is the source of a public;

and that its organization into a state is effected by establishing special agencies to care for

9 P&P 34



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and regulate these consequences.”10 The state, then, is simply a name given to the

institutionalized management of the interests of a public.

A state is democratic when the institutions and structures of the management of

consequences of shared interest are established and controlled by the public itself. This is

the great notion of democracy that pervades the rhetoric of the founders of the American

republic. This rhetoric is still with us, but, as we see in “The Eclipse of the Public,” what

we call democracy today fails to qualify as an institutionalized system of managing the

consequences of community life which is intelligently designed and implemented by the

public to realize those consequences which are deemed desirable.

III. From Technology to Habit

The democracy that can be found today, however, has inherited all of the rhetoric,

most of the formalities, and little of the pragmatic sensibility of the original American

democratic polities. Unfortunately enough, “the imagination of the founders did not

travel far beyond what could be accomplished and understood in a congeries of self-

governing communities.”11 This, I believe, is Dewey’s way of saying that the formal

democratic institutions of the founders were not and could not have been planned or

intended to work in the modern context.

The increasing scale of society has led to a system of governance based on once-

democratic forms that no longer represent the ethical ideal that the community should

10 P&P 39



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govern itself according to common interests. English political habits and pioneer

conditions had consequences of their own. Local association and town center politics

were the format exercised in order to meet community objectives when communities

were small and social structures less complex. Dewey uses for his example the Electoral

College. This, he tells us, is an institution that achieved its intended effect of vetting

candidate through the deliberations of entrusted representatives, because there was a high

degree of familiarity and community among the parties involved. Now, by Dewey’s lights,

the same institution cannot produce the results for which it was originally implemented. It

is an impersonal ‘registering machine’. The same could be said for the system of political

parties, or any of the other institutions Dewey mentions in diagnosing the eclipse of the

public. It is much harder in a modern society to discern common interests and realize

mutually desirable outcomes.

The pragmatic approach would thus demand that such institutions be regularly

and critically assessed as to the efficacy with which they achieve desirable consequences.

We should not be afraid of radical reform! Why has such reform not taken place, or at

least been insufficient to call modern political institutions properly democratic? If we

think, with Dewey, that the “eclipse of the public” is a consequence of the anachronistic role

that the original institutions of democracy play in todays society (which, I argue, Dewey

does), we should also ask if the continued existence of these institutions can be understood

as a consequence of something else. I want to ask of Dewey: Why has our society clung to

11 P&P 111



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the ill-fitting trappings of a much younger, smaller, and simpler democratic republic, and

how, in all of our growth, have our state institutions not yet burst at their seams?

Under Dewey’s own analysis, if our contemporary political institutions are relics of

a different time, we might come to expect the dissolution of republic. Indeed, this was

very nearly the case during the American Civil War. The history of the United States of

America is one in which these fissures always seem to get patched up and smoother over.

There is some (and somewhat astonishing) capability of the American state to hold the

American community, formally, together.

Dewey argues that modern political society has adapted to its own unprecedented

growth and development in a way that is distinctly apolitical. Rather than intelligently

responding and adapting to create systems and practices whose consequences will be in

line with common interests, we humans have held on to the institutions and habits that

fulfilled these roles in the past, hoping they would continue to do the trick.

In fact, the American polity has continued to cohere, for Dewey, “due to the

consequences of technology employed so as to facilitate the rapid and easy circulation of

opinions and information, and so as to generate constant and intricate interaction far

beyond the limits of face-to-face communities.”12 This is the answer to the ‘how’ question

I mention above. The idea here is that rather than rethink the model of the pioneering

community managing its affairs through township government, we have devised ways to

treat the expanding community in the same way that founding Americans treated the

12 P&P 114



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township. This would seem to be the explanation one might give to early critics of

popular government as they scratch their heads over the trend of global democracy.

This assessment seems to portray political technology—things like highways,

parcel delivery infrastructure, cargo transport capabilities, and telecommunications

technology—as something of a life support system inducing a wheezing polity to continue

respiring. I wonder, however, if there is not more to be said here if we hold Dewey to his

own standard by invoking a hard-minded look at the importance of consequences.

Dewey is not here saying that the development of capabilities like teleconferencing,

rapid transit, and the wonders of digital informations technology have caused the cohesion

of the state in the face of its expanding scope of operation. Such an argument is too

naturalistic and reductive to pass through pragmatic scrutiny. If we reduce technology to

an adhesive force—like the gluten that allows a loaf of bread to expand in the oven

without breaking—we have mystified away the role of the human being. The risk here is

of trying to explain away a perceived phenomenon by positing a causal power, which, like

an invisible hand, guides the course of history. “But, alas,” as Dewey reminds us, “the

public has no hands except those of individual human beings.”13

Technology, broadly conceived, is the “how”—the capability through which

American society has been able to maintain its aging political institutions. The next

question I want to ask, knowing that this trend issues forth from the hands and minds and

mouths of individuals, is why. Why have these institutions not been overhauled where

they are ineffective? Can we understand the continued insistence, for instance, of the



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perfection of the American Constitution, as a consequence of something else? I believe

Dewey has already answered this question in his notion of habit.14

Habits arise as certain techniques are emulated so as to reproduce desirable

consequences. Imagine, for a moment, the advent of a technology like assembly-line

manufacturing. This new capability produces a desirable outcome for those who

implement it, namely, increased material production and profit. The implementation of

this technology becomes a technique, or way of doing something. This technique was

wildly successful, and individuals recognized this success. Thus, the technique spread until

it became habit, that is, the usual way of doing things. Dewey writes, “Habits economize

intellectual as well as muscular energy. They relieve the mind from the thought of means,

thus freeing thought to deal with new conditions and purposes. Moreover, interference

with a well-established habit is followed by uneasiness and antipathy.”15

Habit-following in this way is a behavior with a notable degree of uncritical

thinking. This is what Dewey wants to illustrate with his discussion of the continued

reliance on political institutions that were conceived to address a particular set of

circumstances that are no longer the case. Institutions are habits. Habits have, however,

even more staying power than this sort of inertia. They can be so crucial to the way that

conduct is managed, and thus so valuable, that they become customs or tradition. In this

13 P&P 8214 The insight about the importance of habit and custom for this paper is thanks in part to James Campbell’sessay “Dewey’s Conception of Community” in Reading Dewey ed. Larry Hickman (Indianapolis: IndianaUniversity Press, 1998), 23-42.15 P&P 61



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case they accumulate a certain value of their own, divorced from the original value that

caused them to be adopted as habits.16

To review, technological capabilities present the opportunity for new techniques.

Certain techniques are recognized as beneficial, and are then emulated to the point of

becoming habit. Certain habits carry such weight in the managing of consequences that a

community must engage in that we consider them in a special light, as customs and

traditions. Understood in these terms, Dewey’s critique of contemporary American

political culture is that we have not been critical enough of our customs and traditions,

and as such they no longer serve the common interests of the communities. Instead, they

have been appropriated by other interests, such as the goals of bureaucracy, corporations,

and individuals of power. In contrast, the customs and traditions of a vibrant community

that can effectively achieve what is desirable for all requires customs of association,

interaction, shared action, and shared values. We must stop aiming to just get along.

Habit, however, is not just Dewey’s explanation for what has gone wrong in

America. Habit- formation, rather than being mindless (like that habit of biting one’s nails)

is the result of intelligent self-reflection, and is exactly the kind of process through which

individuals as members of a public have agency for the future well being of that public. It

is well within the power of the community to imagine alternatives to our political culture,

but these alternatives will only be realized if they are put into practice, proven effective,

and solidified as habits. That is to say, they will not be realized through more or better

philosophy.

16 Campbell 25



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The purpose of this essay, it turns out, has been to clarify a pragmatic praxis. As

must be the case with such a project, we must conclude that there is further work to be

done. Dewey agreed, it would seem, as we can see in his later focus on education—both

as a theorist and as an active member of the public community.

I propose to continue this project with an eye towards contemporary techniques

and habits. As these are prescribed by the technology that opens up the imagination to

conceive of new alternatives, the next step is to look, with a Deweyen lens, at the

information technology of today and its political consequences.

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Good Habits- Establishing a Contemporary Pragmatic Praxis From the Writings of John Dewey