Dewey’s Great Community: Democracy as Ethical Ideal

Phillip Quintero

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This paper traces the philosophical insight and political critique that travel across the eras

of Dewey’s work. Specifically, the reader of The Public and Its Problems stands much to gain

from looking at the prior treatment of many of the same problems in the essay The Ethics of

Democracy. The effect of such a project will be to approach a fuller understanding of the later

work. An assessment of Dewey does not go far enough if we simply say that he is ultimately

concerned with the reorganization of structural institutions. There are more obscured

philosophical motivations at work beside the overt democratic political motives that are so

palpable in the later thought. Rather, Dewey’s theoretical concept of democracy—what I will

characterize as the ethical ideal of community—is doing the work of laying philosophical stakes in

the later writings. It is this perspective from the earlier work that I hope to bring to the later.

This, of course, doesn’t mean we should devalue Dewey’s analysis of the relationship

between actual structures of society and government. On the contrary, it is precisely his social

and political work—which amounts to both a critique and a defense of democracy—that stands

much to gain in light the philosophical underpinnings that led up to the later book. Bringing this

light to bear is the project of this paper. I contend that both Dewey’s critique of the Liberalism

of his time and his diagnosis presented in The Public and its Problems can be better understood

by a reading of his conceptual treatment of society and democracy.

By the end of this paper, I hope to have shown why democracy, for Dewey, is a name used

not only for the actualized understanding of the inherent ethical dimension of political human

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association, but also for the political methodology needed to realize such association. In this way,

Dewey’s notion of democracy is an excellent representative of the Pragmatic project as a whole.

I will accordingly depict an interpretation of Dewey’s philosophical concept of democracy

as a methodology and as ethical ideal. Through such an investigation I test Dewey’s account of

the connection between his strong conception community and his diagnosis of modern

democratic governance. Section I of the paper will assess Dewey’s diagnosis of democracy in both

its popular formal iterations and its function as an actual system of political governance. Section

II will uncover Dewey’s philosophical commitments to propose reading his concept of democracy

as both ethical and ideal. Section III will read the conclusions of the first two sections into what

Dewey has written about modern democracies.

I. Locating Dewey’s Project – Diagnosis and Critique

Dewey’s notion of democracy is radical, not in reference to a particular party perspective,

but in the way that it cannot be reduced to a specific political ideology. He does not want to

identify his project with what he perceives to be the status quo in either philosophy or politics.

The idea that comes across from the article Democracy is Radical is that democracy must go

down to the roots of political organization, including the political process; that “the ends of

freedom and individuality for all can be attained only by means that accord with those ends”1.

To show this, and in order to locate this project, I will examine the schools of thought that

                                                                                                               

1  “Democracy is Radical” (1937) source: The Essential Dewey, ed. Larry A. Hickman and Thomas M. Alexander. (Indiana University Press, 1998) v.1 338.  

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Dewey critiques, and the shortcomings for which he ultimately rejects them. This should supply

us with a kind of rubric with which to evaluate whether Dewey’s own theory can adequately

respond to the problems he identifies. In this way I will attempt to first approach the idea

negatively, by pulling an image out of his critique of political theory.

Starting with Dewey’s early work, we can see that he rejects the idea 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.”2 This destruction is a result of the reification included

in dealing with groups of people theoretically, as “numerical aggregates”3, which is that “the non-

social individual is an abstraction arrived at by imagining what man would be if all his human

qualities were taken away.”4 A philosophy like that of Hobbes5 struggles against a false

problem—it tries to bestow some rational order (or rationalization of apparent disorder) where

associated activity is already a natural phenomenon.

A problematic consequence of such abstraction is its reliance on some artificial construct

to account for the actual existence of the social sphere. Dewey objects to the introduction of this

                                                                                                               2 “Ethics of Democracy” (ED) in The Early Works of John Dewey 1882-1898. Ed. George Axtell and Jo Ann Boydston. (Southern Illinois University Press: Carbondale) v.1 232 3 Dewey refers to the work of Sir Henry Maine as a useful representative of all the political theories that consider democracy as “the rule of the many”, which he associates with Hobbes as well as with a misreading of Aristotle (ED 229). 4 ED 232 5 see “Nature, Life and Body-Mind” from Experience and Nature. Source: The Essential Dewey v.1 136.

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kind of artifice—such as social contract6 or essentialist appeals to human nature—to patch up the

incongruity between individualist theories and the fact of human sociality. Of the latter he says,

“Appeal to a gregarious instinct to account for social arrangements is the outstanding example of

the lazy fallacy.

Here again, there is a commitment to the problems that come from society-as-mass

perspectives. This mistaken viewpoint is also what drives these thinkers to their critiques of

democracy. It is easy to see the connection here; “To define democracy simply as the rule of the

many, as sovereignty chopped up into mince meat, is to define it as abrogation of society, as

society dissolved”7. For Dewey, the idea of democracy as rule-by-nobody does not hold up

without the individualist assumption.

Dewey’s critique cuts even deeper than calling out this assumption. In-line with the anti-

foundationalism that pragmatism adheres to, Dewey is also wary of the way political theorists

and philosophers—across intellectual epochs—are concerned with finding a causal force with

which to explain phenomena. Both Rousseauian appeal to instinct and Hobbesian materialism

are focused on looking for such causal factors, a methodology opposed to pragmatism’s focus on

consequences. Dewey will later bring the same critique to bear on Marx.

If we accept that Dewey’s own theory can be read not in terms of causal forces, but in

light of a commitment to the importance of consequences, it becomes more tenable to follow his

                                                                                                               6 He speaks of the Social Contract on ED 231 7  Ibid.  

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alternative theory. Of course, it would be several years before Dewey developed his pragmatism,

and so we will leave that insight for later in this paper. At this stage in his intellectual

development, it should be apparent enough that the early Dewey was firmly in the grasp of his

Hegelian influences. His rejection of a ‘non-social individual’, and the language of ‘articulation

and generality’ show the role idealism had in forming his philosophical perspective. It is hard to

ignore that Hegel likened the State to an organism in a way that shares principles of Dewey’s

critique of individualistic-liberal political theories. If, as I suggest, this perspective remains

influential in Dewey’s work even as he later moved away from idealism, then it is here that we

can identify where the later Dewey is beholden to history. Dewey later makes problems of large-

scale democratic states the subject of diagnosis, but stops short of Hegel’s project of assessing the

ideal state8.

II

In the previous section I have examined one of Dewey’s earliest and most basic

philosophical commitments—that “man is essentially a social being”9, and the way this

commitment informs any subsequent theory of political society. In order, then, not to fall into

the shortcomings of a political theory that fails to understand prepolitical human sociality,

Dewey’s project must be to propose an alternative concept that is in line with this premise.

                                                                                                               

8  As  we  will  see  later  on,  the  state  cannot  be  an  ideal  for  Dewey—it  is  the  expression  of  the  ideal  of  community.  

9  ED 232  

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Dewey must provide us with both an alternative description of an essentially social political

community and political system, as he will stand by no reduction between the two10. I argue

however that, for Dewey, democracy is the answer for both.

Democracy as Organic Society and the Problem of the Common Will

“If this be so [that ‘society in its unified and structural character is the fact of the

case’], and if democracy be a form of society, it not only does have, but must have, a

common will; for it is this unity of will which makes it an organism. A state

represents men so far as they have become organically related to one another, or are

possessed of a unity of purpose and interest.”11

In one sense, in this early formulation Dewey lays plain his theory of democracy. To

simplify the argument: a) Sociality is a fact of human existence, b) A theory of society that is true

to this premise will must be an organic one, c) Organic society has a common will, and d)

democracy is the formal, actual instance of the common will of a human community (the

organism of both the real political community and institutions of the state). As I read Ethics of

Democracy, premise (a) is very simply a fact for Dewey. This premise is borne of the problems he

sees with individualist political philosophy and of the extent to which he is influenced by Hegel.

This is the subject of section I of this paper. I will now move on to (b), the notion of society as

                                                                                                               

10 Dewey seems to anticipate what Habermas will later characterize as the difference between system and lifeworld. Dewey’s own preoccupations about democracy moving away from community are well captured by what Habermas calls the colonization of the lifeworld.

11   ED 232  

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organism.

The introduction of the organism into Ethics of Democracy is a little abrupt. Dewey uses it

already as a working concept, a way of talking about political communities. I take it that he

expects his reader will, as he does, adopt this particular usage from Hegel12 and from what he

describes as “the whole drift of political theory since the abstract natural right philosophy of the

French Revolution… towards the conception that society is an organism, and government an

expression of its organic nature”. 13

At times the idea of society-as-organism is part and parcel of human sociality. It is no help

to Dewey, however, if we read his argument as an abstract positing of essential human

connectedness that translates to the essential wholeness of a social group. This uncharitable

reading would suspect Dewey of dealing in tautologies. The fact is that some work must be done

to get us from (a) to (b). At other moments such work is evident, such as in the quote opening

this section of the paper, where an organism is constituted by possession of a unity of will. At

least we can conclude that there is something about human associated action by virtue of which

it is an organic society—something electrons, for instance, do not have.

That being said, I find this section of The Ethics of Democracy to be rather unhelpful.

Fortunately, in the next 39 years, by the publication of The Public and Its Problems, Dewey

                                                                                                               12 See Hotho’s addition to §263 in Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. 13 ED 232. Dewey echoes Hegel when he writes, “Government is to the state what language is to thought; it not only communicates the purposes of the state, but in so doing gives them for the first time articulation and generality.” (ED 230)

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found a vocabulary with which to clarify his position. Filling out what I see as a shortcoming in

the real-world analysis of the young Dewey, he later writes:

“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 arise purposes, plans, measures and means, to secure consequences

which are liked and eliminate those which are found obnoxious. Thus perception

generates a common interest; that is, those affected by the consequences are

perforce concerned in conduct of 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 form a group distinctive enough to require

recognition and a name. The name selected is the Public”.14

This passage, in comparison with the earlier article, seems to demonstrate Dewey’s idealist

beginnings tempered by the methodology of pragmatism. Gone is the language of manifestation

and actual expression15. Instead, Dewey’s theory takes on the pragmatic characteristics of

experimentalism and a commitment to facts and consequences. In this formulation, the premise

is acknowledged to be a very basic assertion, and the unity that seems to be the basis for

advocating democracy has shifted from the expression of a common will to the formation of a

common interest.

The argument for ‘essential human sociality’ is much clearer in this passage. Dewey is not

                                                                                                               14 “Search for the Public” from The Public and its Problems, source: The Essential Dewey, ed. Larry A. Hickman and Thomas M. Alexander. (Indiana University Press, 1998) v.1 292 15 ED 234

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relying on the language of idealism, but is rather making a more or less traditional ontological

remark—namely, that things in the world are associated with one another. This formulation is

much less contestable than the equivalent idea presented in the earlier article: here it applies to

humans no less than to molecules. The whole of associated behavior when it occurs in humanity

is the human world, it is society. The stakes laid out in The Ethics of Democracy are not

compromised here, but the argument is much more focused under the new pragmatic

formulation.

So, too, the argument for society as organism gains clarity here. Whereas in Ethics of

Democracy, the society-as-organism view was somehow related both to essential human sociality

and to unity of will, here we can understand organism (or public) as a whole whose unity comes

from common interest. Indeed, even the process by which this common interest is formed is a

pragmatic one; it is through experimentalism that a society decides what consequences of

associated or conjoint action are and are not in its favor. It through this tendency of intelligent

beings that a public is formed. Dewey would agree with the position that a group of people is a

community in the extent to which this formation process of common interest is successful. A

community becomes a public thing in the extent to which the ‘common interest’ extends

beyond the people who are directly involved.

Though the vocabulary of organism has largely given way to ‘public’, the entire point of

view is not a radical departure from Ethics of Democracy. The public community is the sum of

the organic association of the demos and its ‘tendency’ or its ethos. This understanding of the

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public is an improvement on Dewey’s early theory of the organic form of society as actualized

through the common will. It better fills the void left by his own critique of individualism. It is

only in light of the tendency of a society to reflexively vet ‘purposes, plans, measures and means’

that it begins to make sense for the early Dewey to say that “[a vote] is a manifestation of some

tendency of the social organism”.16 This tendency, no longer conceived of as the manifestation

of an ideal will, now takes on a character more akin to natural selection. The formation of

common interest has a key difference with Darwin’s theory, however, in that as Dewey describes

it, the formation process is intelligent. Humans can reflexively evaluate their own interests,

unlike Dawkins’ selfish gene.17 It is the ability of human association to ‘take account of’ the

consequences of collective actions that is now called out by Dewey as the grounding for

community.

This alone does not solve the problem, however. This generation of common interest

through perception still has to be examined. Dewey, for instance, agreed with Walter Lippmann

that the citizen of a large-scale society like the United States couldn’t possess the near-

omniscience required to have an intelligent perspective on every consequence of every action in

which the public has a stake.18

                                                                                                               

16  ED  234  

17  see  Dawkins,  Richard.  The  Selfish  Gene.  Whereas  Dawkins  is  dealing  with  theories  of  biological  evolution,  Dewey  is  dealing  with  the  development  of  human  community,  and  I  do  not  mean  to  suggest  that  Dawkins’  argument  against  intentional  design  applies  in  this  case.  

18  See  Lippmann,  Walter  The  Phantom  Public,  as  well  as  the  exchange  between  Dewey  and  Lippmann  on  this  subject.  

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If nothing else, Dewey has left us with room for future projects. Indeed, he has successfully

deepened the problem with his later analysis, and now it becomes clear what he meant when he

previously wrote, “Society, as a real whole, is the normal order”19. Democracy realizes its ethical

dimension when one takes the perspective that society is an organism capable of moderating its

own interests. Democracy is the formal organization that allows the organism to carry out this

function. Democratic structures of government carry the ethical validity that comes from

allowing a society to ‘secure consequences which are liked and eliminate those which are found

obnoxious’. This idea of democracy as the methodology of social emancipation shares a family

resemblance with the project taken up by Habermas in The Theory of Discourse Ethics, and it

seems to me perfectly appropriate to read Dewey as a kind of critical theory.

Thus understood, it becomes clear what is at stake in something like the search for a Great

Community. Structures of government in modern large-scale societies such as the United States

are not sufficiently empowering of and informed by the tendency of an organic society to move

collectively towards common interest. This is ironic, because democracy is supposed to be just

that—government by the community. He sees the problem in terms of a misunderstanding of

what we are doing when we claim to operate on democratic principles. Modern democracy, as

Dewey sees it, is increasingly moving towards the bureaucratic management of a fractured

population riddled with disparate private interests. He advocates a return to understanding

democracy as the formalized expression of community, of organic society. The Public and Its                                                                                                                

19   ED 232  

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Problems is largely about how social and political institutions need to be structured so that the

actual democratic society can function more like the ideal one.

III

It is in this spirit that Dewey makes his critique of modern democratic political systems,

which are in some way not democratic. He points out; “the conceptions and shibboleths which

are traditionally associated with democracy take on a veridical and directive meaning only when

they are construed as marks and traits of an association which realizes the defining characteristics

of a community”.20 His treatment of the ideas of fraternity, liberty and equality illustrate the

difference here. These ‘shibboleths’ are seen to take on the pietism of an empty utopian ideal in,

for instance, nationalist rhetoric. Politicians usually call on the pathos of notions like fraternity,

liberty, and equality when extolling the laurels of their particular democratic institutions. They

have been cited as justification for merely political agendas, even imperialistic ones. Dewey would

have us take a critical look at these notions. Without insight as to how these concepts are

characteristics of community, these ethical foundations become empty. Dewey has extracted

from these concepts the actual conditions we consider desirable, and points out that they are

aspects of ethical community life. He makes a neat comparison of the meaning of fraternity,

                                                                                                               

20  “Search  for  the  Great  Community”  from The Public and its Problems, source: The Essential Dewey, v.1 295  

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liberty and equality between their abstracted appropriations by political ideologues versus their

character as ethical foundations of community:

Abstract appropriation by individualist political theories Community-based ideal

Equality

“A creed of mechanical identity which is false to the facts and impossible of realization. Efforts to maintain it is divisive of the vital bonds which hold men together... the outcome is a mediocrity in which good is common only in the sense of being average an vulgar”

“Denotes the unhampered share which each individual member of the community has in the consequences of associated action. It is equitable because it is measured only by need and capacity to utilize, not by extraneous factors which deprive one in order that another may take and have”

Fraternity

“It is more difficult to sever the idea of brotherhood from that of a community, and hence it is either practically ignored in the movements which identify democracy with Individualism, or else it is a sentimentally appended tag”

“…is another name for the conspicuously appreciated goods which accrue from an association in which all share, and which gives direction to the conduct of each.”

Liberty “Independence of social ties, and ends in dissolution and anarchy.”

“That secure release and fulfillment of personal potentialities which rake place only in rich and manifold association with others: the power to be an individualized self making a distinctive contribution and enjoying in its own way the fruits of association.”

Figure 121

                                                                                                               

21  Ibid.  (Quotations)  

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These three words, when taken as presented under individualism are idols, whereas

Dewey would have us see them as ideals, something to be striven for in the pursuit of

community. We can see that what is missing, as it were, is exactly the communitarian

characteristic that I have in the paper argued best represent Dewey’s notion of democracy.

Dewey’s reading of these ideals of democracy restores a validity that its detractors would

be remiss not to reconsider. As I read him, Dewey is a master of radical critique. His work often

brings to the issues a perspective which brushes off rhetorical baggage to uncover the meaning

that is often lost in the debate. He looks to the very root of democracy, community, and pulls

out the ethical ideal that makes it compelling to think about in the first place. His analysis is able

to access an ontological moment of beginning, of human history, providing archeological insights

that are neither nostalgic nor dogmatic. This is the aspect of Dewey’s work that remains relevant

to politics, philosophy, critical theory, pedagogy, and almost any other field where the conditions

of life are under investigation.