Putnam, Hilary - A Reconsideration of Deweyan Democracy

09/21/2012

Renewing Philosophy, ch 9, Harvard University Press 1992

Author claims that Dewey's justification of democracy as a "form of social life" is epistemological, in contrast with Bernard Williams' discussion of ethical justifications as a "medical metaphor" and focused solely on the individual. For Williams, the justification for enforcing ethical rules, prototypically around flourishing, is that there is something objectively wrong with the individual who isn't flourishing: that individual is "ill" (pg180-2). Ethics would then be moved into some branch of human psychology, one that we have yet to fully flesh out (if at all). One chief problem author raises is that Williams' conception is 'radically individualistic' (pg182), and Dewey's is for a society in general. The problem is that the medical metaphor does not translate or anologize well into a societal picture.

Author goes on to talk about the problems in modern western society with critiquing other cultures. Besides the cultural relativism argument from anthropologists, there is a persistent idea of the "noble savage", which author tries to unpack as a belief that primitive cultures are superior to modern western ones (pg183-5). The other alternative is the "golden age" myth that points to a spot in history where society was rationally superior but that age is now gone (pg185). Both alternatives want to immunize that culture from suggestions of alternative ways of life, according to author.

The approach Dewey takes is that there are "better and worse resolutions to human predicaments" (pg186), and that this is discoverable through inquiry, hypothesis, experimentation and analysis: an epistemological approach. Author claims this is distinct from, say, Williams, who must have a prior "fact of the matter" established ontologically at which these better or worse resolutions aim. Without that, the resolutions are just "local" truths, not "absolute" ones. (pg187) Dewey believed that philosophy had no specific content for itself other than what was available to common sense and science, thus freedom and information were crucial for resolving problems (pg188). Furthermore, there is no one way to live, thus a democracy is needed to be responsive to further discussion and experimentation (pg189). This does not entail just relying on experts, as Durkheim concluded.

Author argues that Dewey's shortfall is when it comes to moral dilemmas, specifically ones where experimentation and optimizing policies will not work: author gives the example from Sartre's Pierre, who has to decide between joining the resistance (in WWII) or caring for his sick mother (pg190-1). Author talks about William James' Will To Believe essay and how this kind of existential decision can be made "in advance of the evidence". (pg191-2) This line of argumentation for James was criticized since he took belief in God to be an existential choice like Pierre's. Author argues that James falls in line with Wittgenstein that religious belief is a-rational, not irrational or rational. Author gives an extended discussion of the choice of belief in theories even in science (pg192-3), and distinguishes it from religion and other existential choices, whose "rightness" cannot be publicly confirmed (pg194-5). The idea here is that consequential 'estimated utilities' is no way to live a meaningful human life (pg194). Author speculates that Dewey's problem on the individual moral decision has to do with his dualistic conception of human life: the social and the aesthetic (pg196).

The final pages are a conclusion for the entire book, which argues that philosophy is the practice that 'unsettles' prejudices and 'pet convictions' but also changes both our lives and our self-perceptions (pg198-200).