Putnam, Hilary - A Reconsideration of Deweyan Democracy

05/15/2009

Renewing Philosophy, Harvard Press 1992 Ch 9

This chapter tries to establish Dewey's defense of democracy as an argument for social morality. Author beings by quoting Bernard Williams when it comes to giving a justification of moral claims-- forget trying to convince someone to be moral and instead try to justify the concepts and particulars to someone already committed to being moral. Williams' shortfall however was in giving an objective justification for ethics as an individual case of having a personally deleterious moral character-- a justification coming from psychology. This is considered a personal, ontological justification, which is orthogonal to Dewey's social, epistemological one (pg182). It is social because it addresses society and societal problems. It is epistemological in that it posits that intelligent empirical investigation is the best chance at finding effectual strategies for fixing social problems.(pg186) Author considers this anti-metaphysical because it doesn't presuppose that there is one 'absolute' answer outside of whatever we can find in scientific investigation. (pg187) So the grounds of moral activity comes from the shortcomings of the current social situation and the likelihood that science will find a solution. This jointly justifies 'democratic institutions as freedom of thought and speech' (pg188). One important factor in this argument is that Dewey doesn't leave it to the 'experts' (pg189) to show us progress, since privilege can easily create privileged interests and 'cognitive distortion' about the good. Instead, social progress must be done in the same way (by analogy) that scientific progress is done: with open, informed, free democratic investigation and thus justification.

The worth of democracy is occasionally objected two by two different sources, according to author. They include extreme relativists who object to interventions into any other culture's traditions, even the most undemocratic (pg183-5). They also include the reactionaries who believe that society begins to regress once democracy is established-- author considers Alasdair MacIntyre as an example (pg185-6).

One criticism author levels at Dewey's approach is that it lacks the content required to settle personal ontic anxiety-- existential moral questions-- such as the one posed by Sartre about staying at home to help your elderly mother or going off to join the anti-fascist revolution. (pg190-2) More importantly, James extends this criticism (in The Will To Believe) to be against scientific inquiry when it comes to many deep personal decisions-- you can't try both and see which suit you better. (pg192-6)

The chapter (and book?) ends with a conclusion and discusses how important true equality is in a liberal democracy-- so that everyone can partake in the free play of their natural endowments. (pg198-199)