Matthew Pamental

According to a number of authors, character is dead. On their view, the evidence is in, and all of our attempts to inculcate character in our students have not only failed, but are in fact destined to fail for various reasons. They base their conclusions in part on a number of experimental results that have been obtained since the 1920s, collectively known as situationism. If these authors are right, then the current emphasis on character education in the United States is woefully misplaced. On the contrary, however, Matthew Pamental argues in this essay that situationism's evidence is being misinterpreted. A Deweyan sociocultural approach to the nature and ideals of character both explains the evidence and reveals how character can be reconstructed and revived.

Modern discussions of ethics are framed in terms of what John Dewey called 'either/or' conceptual maps. Dewey's infamous claim is that such 'either/or' analyses fail to capture the subtlety and complexity of the moral life. He argued that there is no substitute for examining our circumstances in light of our ideals and determining in that context what we ought to do. Furthermore, Dewey thought that previous moral theorists had developed a view of human agency and reason that did not match with empirical reality at the end of the 19th century. Dewey's naturalistic account of human agency, his analysis of the role of moral theory, and his conceptions of the ideals of growth and democracy were all designed to show how we can overcome the standard dichotomies and solve the philosophical 'problems' that emerge from them. ;I believe Dewey's ethics is a plausible alternative to the 'virtues/principles' dichotomy current in the literature. To do this, I will need to outline five conceptual dimensions over which contemporary ethicists tend to argue. The five dimensions are: Habits vs. Intelligence. This chapter will show how Dewey overcomes the standard distinction between mechanistic pictures of action-production and so-called 'autonomous' accounts of rational action; Desire and Belief in motivation. Here I will be showing how Dewey's account of human interests and activity supersedes the debates over whether belief or desire is the primary cause of action; The liberal vs. the communitarian ideal of the self. In this chapter I will argue that liberalism's inadequate ideal of civic character, and communitarianism's lack of a grounding for such an ideal, are surpassed by Dewey's ideal of democratic character; Human Flourishing. Dewey's major teleological principle, Growth, is here placed between Kant's and Aristotle's conceptions of the ideal end of moral development, and Meta-Ethics and Practical Reason. I argue that Dewey's account of the Good, Right, and the objectivity of Moral Judgment enable his ethics to avoid significant criticisms of his pragmatism and instrumentalism, leaving it as a plausible and attractive alternative to current deontological and teleological theories.

Among the latest trends in moral educational theory, several authors have suggested that a sociocultural approach to moral education is an improvement over the dominant cognitive-developmental and character educational paradigms. This approach draws its inspiration from the work of the Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky. In the 1920s, Vygotsky attempted to reconstruct psychology to overcome the false dichotomy psychologists had posited between the individual and the environment. This genre of sociocultural theory has come to be known as activity theory. Despite its aims, however, activity theory never overcame the dualism of individual and environment. My contention is that Dewey's moral psychology is more adequate to that task, and thus is a more appropriate foundation for developing moral educational policy and practice

Pragmatism has been understood by bioethicists as yet another rival in the “methods wars,” as yet another theory of moral deliberation. This has led to criticism of pragmatic bioethics as both theoretically and practically inadequate. Pragmatists’ responses to these objections have focused mainly on misunderstandings of pragmatism’s epistemology. These responses are insufficient. Pragmatism’s commitment to radical empiricism gives it theoretical resources unappreciated by critics and defenders alike. Radical empiricism, unlike its more traditional ancestors, undercuts the gaps between theory and practice, and subjective and objective accounts of experience, and in so doing provides the metaphysical and epistemological basis for a thoroughgoing empirical naturalism in ethics. Pragmatism’s strength as an approach to moral problems thus emerges as a result of a much wider array of resources than contemporary interpreters have acknowledged, which makes it a richer, deeper framework for understanding moral deliberation in general and bioethical decision making in particular