John Dewey’s Pragmatism and Moral Education

Abstract

In this essay, I argue that Dewey's version of pragmatism did not allow him to develop a coherent theory of moral education. Dewey maintained that any learning is the matter of an acquisition of habits, and knowledge is a network of such habits. He did not distinguish between the actions and the purpose of these actions. Moreover, he suggested that the virtuousness of actions is contingent on the particular environment of the agent. Dewey's insistence on abstinence from a determination of educational goals together with his conceptual ambiguity about the nature of habits and actions leave his contribution to our insights into moral education wanting.