Contemporary Pragmatism Editions Rodopi

Vol. 6, No. 2 (December 2009), 111135 2009

John Dewey on Happiness: Going Against the

Grain of Contemporary Thought
Stephen M. Fishman and Lucille McCarthy

Deweys theory of happiness goes against the grain of much

contemporary psychologic and popular thought by identifying the
highest form of human happiness with moral behavior. Such
happiness, according to Dewey, avoids being at the mercy of
circumstances because it is independent of the pleasures and
successes we take from experience and, instead, is dependent upon
the disposition we bring to experience. It accompanies a disposition
characterized by an abiding interest in objects in which all can share,
one founded upon a dynamic inner harmony and evolving adjustment
to the world. The marks of such an expansive disposition are
stability of character, braveness of soul, and equanimity of soul,
and the key to the development of these traits is what Dewey calls
ethical love. We conclude with consideration of three potential
criticisms of Deweys view of happiness and possible Deweyan
rejoinders.

The final happiness of an individual resides in the supremacy of certain

interests in the make-up of character; namely, alert, sincere, enduring
interests in the objects in which all can share. It is found in such
interests rather than in the accomplishment of definite external results
because this happiness alone is not at the mercy of circumstances.
John Dewey, Ethics, 1932 (LW 7: 302)

There is currently a vast amount of material on happiness being published by

both academic and popular writers.1 We add the voice of John Dewey to current
conversations because his theory goes against the grain of much contemporary
psychologic and popular thinking by identifying the highest form of human
happiness with ethical behavior.2 More than pleasure or personal success,
humans desire harmony within themselves, with others in society, and with their
environment (1932, LW 7: 197).3 Satisfaction of this desire requires an
expansive disposition, one marked by the character traits of stability, braveness,
and equanimity of soul (1932, LW 7: 198). Further, according to Dewey, such a
disposition is accompanied by the highest possible human happiness.
112 STEPHEN M. FISHMAN AND LUCILLE MCCARTHY

With regard to the development of these character traits, the key, for
Dewey, is what he calls ethical love. It is not because we will ourselves to live
in ways that reflect the supremacy of certain interests that we develop
stability of character. It is not because we will ourselves to so fully identify
with the interests of others that we develop braveness of soul. And it is not
because we will ourselves to pursue objects in which all can share that we
develop equanimity of soul (1925, LW 1: 314).4 Instead, for Dewey, these
traits are a consequence of ethical love where a persons will, like a lovers will
is possessed, vanquished, or called by an ideal to whose actualization the
person devotes him or herself (1934a, LW 9: 1015; 1932, LW 7: 259). In sum,
the fullest happiness, for Dewey, is the accompaniment of a stable, brave, and
equable disposition, a disposition that is promoted by ethical love.

1. Going Against The Grain of Contemporary Thinking

In taking this stance, Dewey is at odds, as we have indicated, with the position
taken by many current writers, including most contemporary psychologists.
These writers maintain that happiness, in all its varieties, is a combination of
positive affect and satisfaction with ones life (see, for example, Argyle 2001,
23). Psychologists who identify happiness with positive mood and satisfaction
also refer to this state as subjective well-being, a perception that this time of
ones life, or even life as a whole, is fulfilling, meaningful, and pleasant (Myers
1992, 2324). The conditions under which an individual achieves such states
and feelings of satisfaction are, according to these psychologists, irrelevant. That
is, peoples happiness is not dependent upon their sensitivity to the social
consequences of their behavior or upon the moral approbation and
disapprobation of others.

1.1 Current Psychologists Who Deny a Necessary Connection

between Ethical Behavior and Happiness

Daniel Nettle, a Reader in Psychology at the University of Newcastle, is

representative of psychologists who divorce their study of happiness from
consideration of morality. Nettle defends his view that the question of moral
behavior has no place in discussions of the psychology of happiness by arguing
that there are no criteria for determining who is fit to evaluate someones life.
He writes, If the judge is a psychologist, or society, imposing some external
standard of what one should do with life, then the concept has become a
moralizing one; an ideology, in fact. But, at least within any liberal tradition of
thought, happiness should not be moralized (2005, 20).
We find an interesting example of the attempt, and difficulty, of
discussing happiness without moralizing in the contemporary school of
positive psychology. Martin E. P. Seligman, the originator of positive
psychology, seeks to identify what he calls authentic happiness with virtuous
 John Dewey on Happiness 113

behavior while, at the same time, professing to avoid any value judgments and
keeping his work strictly descriptive (2003, 129; see also Haidt 2006).
Seligman reports that after a careful examination of the worlds greatest
religious and philosophic literature, he discovered an astonishing convergence
of virtues across thousands of years and all cultures (2002, 11). Although
diverse cultures may disagree on some of the details, they all, according to
Seligman, feature six core virtues. These virtues are wisdom, courage, justice,
temperance, love, and spirituality.
Since Seligman, as a scientist, wants to measure these virtues, he
operationalizes them or breaks them down into 24 different personality traits or
strengths of character (Seligman 2002, 133). For example, a person is wise
who exhibits any one of several traits, including curiosity, ingenuity, and street
smarts. A person is courageous who exhibits any of several traits, including
perseverance, industry, and diligence (Seligman 2002, 140158). Seligman then
goes on to say that when we use our strengths of character we experience what
the Hungarian psychologist Mihali Csikszentimihalyi scientifically
illuminated and labeled flow (Seligman 2002, 112). Playing a competitive
game of tennis, having a conversation that leads us to express new ideas, closing
a business deal, or any work well done are examples of experiences that
Seligman says, quoting Csikszentimihalyi, lead to flow. More generally,
Seligman defines flow as experiences of total absorption, the suspension of
consciousness, and total immersion in what we are doing. In short, flow yields
what Seligman calls high gratifications (2002, 111115).
Seligmans identification of virtuous living with the gratifications of flow
lies behind his choice of his friend, Len, as his exemplar of someone who is
authentically happy. Len is a millionaire CEO of an options-trading company,
champion bridge-player, and avid sports fan. Seligman writes, Remember Len,
my bridge-champion and CEO friend...? It is the gratifications which Len has
in abundance that are the key to my saying that he leads a good life.... His life
is full of total engagement: being a champion bridge player, options trader, and
avid sports fan (2002, 111112). Seligman concludes his discussion of Len by
connecting him to the classic Greek conception of the good life. He argues that
Len leads a virtuous or eudaimonic life since Lens experiences of flow come
about as the result of his enacting personal strengths and virtues (2002, 112).
Although Seligman says that [t]o be a virtuous person is to display, by
acts of will, all or at least most of the six ubiquitous virtues, he also tells his
readers, I do not believe that you should devote overly much effort to
correcting your weaknesses. Rather, I believe that the highest success comes
from building and using your signature strengths (2002, 137, 13). It is
Seligmans failure to recognize the importance of the unification of the virtues
that leads us to question his claim that Len is an exemplar of the good or moral
life. Without unification of the virtues, it is easy to imagine someone who
exhibits only some of Seligmans signature strengths or virtues like
curiosity, ingenuity, and street smarts but lacks other virtues like
114 STEPHEN M. FISHMAN AND LUCILLE MCCARTHY

kindness, humanity, and love. In the absence of the latter three virtues,
exercise of the former three could very well be used in service of narrowly
focused, socially harmful ends. Seligman tells us nothing, for example, about
how Len uses his great wealth. We do not know if he uses his money virtuously,
that is, whether he is generous with his wealth or miserly. Neither do we know
how Len uses his power as a CEO. Does he use it to advance the interests of his
community, or does he exercise it to further narrowly centered goals?
We speculate that when Seligman chooses Len as an exemplar of the
good or virtuous life, he identifies the eudaimonic life with a flourishing or
exceptional life. Such identification, coupled with Seligmans lack of stress on
the unification of the virtues, may lead him to identify virtuous living with
winning or excelling in some activity or skill. Since excellence in some activity
or skill is objective and measurable, Seligman can claim that he has managed to
solve the age-old problem of the good life without prescribing or moralizing.
In our view, this leads, unfortunately, to a limited or flawed conception of
virtuous activity. Thus, although we find Seligmans effort as a psychologist to
include virtue in his conception of happiness laudable, we believe that he falls
short of his goal.

1.2 How Dewey Might View Seligmans Exemplar of Happiness

Regarding Seligmans claims about Len, his exemplar of happiness, Dewey

would not deny that Len is, to some degree, happy. Dewey recognizes that
people we morally condemn are sometimes happy. He notes, There are
certain kinds of happiness which the good man enjoys which the evil-minded
man does not but the reverse is [also] true (1932, LW 7: 194). Responding
further to contemporary psychologists like Seligman, Dewey would also
emphasize that there are different kinds of happiness, just as there are different
kinds of pleasure. Some types of happiness are fleeting and offer limited
satisfaction whereas others are enduring and integrate a wide range of human
desires (1937, LW 7: 196197). Len may be happy, but Dewey would argue that
his behavior does not display the sort of disposition that is accompanied by the
fullest human happiness. In short, Dewey response to those who, like Nettle and
Seligman, argue that moralizing has no place in discussions of happiness would
be that, without moralizing, we have no way to distinguish the gratifications
of a dictator like Stalin from those of a leader, like Gustavo Gutierrez, the
Peruvian founder of Liberation Theology, who work tirelessly for the poor.

2. Deweys Theory of Happiness as a Disposition of the Self

Deweys claim that the fullest happiness is not at the mercy of circumstances
reflects his view that supreme happiness is a disposition of the self. It does not
depend upon experiencing unusual success, excellence, or joyous pleasures but,
rather, upon an adaptation to life that endures despite the expected uncertainties
 John Dewey on Happiness 115

of human existence (1934a, LW 9: 12). Although Dewey recognizes the value of

successes and pleasures (1934b, LW 10: 23), he does not identify these with the
fullest happiness because successes and pleasures come and go. After all, as he
acknowledges, life is unstable, uncannily unstable (1925, LW 1: 43). Rather, the
fullest happiness, for Dewey, results from a steadfast commitment to pursue
ones ideals despite lifes inevitable ups and downs. He writes,

Happiness ... is a stable condition, because it is dependent not upon what

transiently happens to us but upon the standing disposition of the self.
One may find happiness in the midst of annoyances; be contented and
cheerful in spite of a succession of disagreeable experiences, if one has
braveness and equanimity of soul. Agreeableness depends upon the way a
particular event touches us; it tends to focus attention on the self, so that a
love of pleasures as such tends to render one selfish or greedy. Happiness
is a matter of the disposition we actively bring with us to meet situations,
the qualities of mind and heart with which we greet and interpret
situations. Even so it is not directly an end of desire and effort, in the
sense of an end-in-view purposely sought for, but is rather an end-
product, a necessary accompaniment, of the character which is interested
in objects that are enduring and intrinsically related to an outgoing and
expansive nature (LW 7: 198).

In this passage, we not only hear Deweys view that happiness is a disposition of
the self. We also hear that when an individual has stable character and
braveness and equanimity of soul, then she can be happy in the midst of the
disagreeable and annoying. In addition, Dewey presents his version of the
paradox of happiness, the view that happiness is best pursued indirectly.5 As
Dewey expresses it, happiness is not directly an end of desire and effort but a
necessary accompaniment of a character that is interested in enduring
objects.
How does someone develop a character marked by stability, braveness,
and equanimity of soul? How does someone come to an interest in (and devotion
to) to objects in which all can share? The answer, for Dewey, is ethical love, that
is, the commitment to ideals that are socially beneficial. He tells us, ...in its
ethical sense, love signifies completeness of devotion to the objects esteemed
good (1932, LW 7: 259).

3. The Nature of Ethical Love

Deweys juxtaposition of ethical and love is unusual. We normally associate

love with romance, sexual attraction, filial affection, and friendship. By contrast,
we associate the ethical with self-constraint, the rights of others, principles of
conduct, and public approbation. Dewey recognizes these features of morality,
but he adds another dimension to ethical behavior. Since he believes that all
116 STEPHEN M. FISHMAN AND LUCILLE MCCARTHY

thinking rests upon feelings and emotions (Williams 1982, 127), he maintains
that ethics and love, reason and emotion, intellect and feeling are not natural
enemies but are at their best when working in harmony. It follows that if people
are going to have an alert, sincere, enduring interest in the objects in which all
can share, they will need to fall in love with this objective (1932, LW 7: 302).
If they do fall in love with this ideal, they will organize their lives around it.
They will continually be thinking about this objective in the way a lover
continually thinks about her or his beloved. They will be devoted to this
objective, make sacrifices in its service, and fully identify with it. This explains
why Dewey argues that if we can cultivate our capacity for ethical love, we
stand our best chance of developing an enduring interest in objects in which all
can share. We stand our best chance of developing a dynamic harmony with the
world and nurturing those character traits whose by-product is the fullest
possible human happiness.
Significantly, for the usual objects of love romantic partners, family,
and friends Dewey substitutes objects esteemed good. What does he mean
by objects esteemed good? We believe Dewey would organize these goods
into two main categories. The first would include objects that lead to better
communication. Dewey has in mind more than the ability to share news and
information. He is concerned with the consequences of our communications. He
counsels devotion to fostering communications that increase our ability to see
the impact of our actions upon others. This explains why he praises ethical
loves thoughtfulness and sympathy as well as its concern for the welfare
of all affected by conduct (1932, LW 7: 259). In particular, esteemed objects in
this first category help break down the barriers of class, race, and nationality by
increasing our awareness of the repercussions of what we say and do upon
others. This sort of communication is also an object of what Dewey calls
ethical love because it promotes the kinds of interactions that he places at the
center of democratic living (1916, MW 9: 93).
The second category of Deweys objects esteemed good would include
practices that further the things in civilization we most prize (1934a, LW 9:
57). Among the things that Dewey believes we most prize are those that increase
our understanding of political, public, and private institutions, of commerce, of
education, and the workings of nature. Dewey also includes whatever improves
and adds to the practices of the arts (literary, painterly, musical), the sciences,
family life, friendship, and love (1934a, LW 9: 35).

4. Ethical Love and Stability, Braveness, and Equanimity of Soul

as the Means to the Highest Happiness

How is ethical love a means to an expansive disposition and the fullest

happiness? That is, how does ethical love help us develop stability of character
and braveness and equanimity soul? We begin with the importance of ethical
love for developing stability of character.
 John Dewey on Happiness 117

4.1 Stability of Character

For Dewey, the life of someone who has stable character reflects consistency
and order. People with stable character do not act on their first impulse. Their
lives are, as a result, well integrated and display ordered richness rather than
discontinuity (1939, LW 14: 229). The life of a happy person, for Dewey, has a
narrative quality about it, an overriding meaning that gives it depth and
development. In short, someone with stable character has achieved a dynamic
inner harmony, an evolving integration of her various impulses and thoughts.
She has developed a unified, yet growing, self.
The means to achieving this unity, according to Dewey, is ethical love.
He believes that stability of character results from an individuals having a
vision of the person she wants to become, a person whose life reflects the
ethically loved ideal the objects esteemed good to which she has surrendered
and chosen to devote herself. Her stability comes about as she organizes and
continually shapes her life in accordance with this vision.

4.2 Braveness of Soul

What does Dewey have in mind when he refers to braveness of soul? In

remarks at his 70th birthday, Dewey observed that one of the greatest obstacles
to happiness is an all too-present underlying fear of life and what it may bring
(1929, LW 5: 421). This generalized fear leads to a turning in on ones self and a
narrowing of ones interests. It keeps us from finding ways to continually
expand our interests to include the interests of others and, thus, find harmony
with others. According to Dewey, the way to overcome this fear and develop
braveness of soul is by nourishing fears opposite, namely, ethical love. More
specifically, he encourages us to love and wholeheartedly embrace what we,
after using our thought to the utmost, most value (1925, LW 1: 314). If we do
this, we will so identify with what we value that we will devote ourselves to its
further realization. More specifically, ethical love and embrace of esteemed
objects enables us to override worries about personal pain and death. We lose
our limited self to find an expanded, more widely interested, self (1916, MW
9: 133, 1934b, LW 10: 199). As we identify with activities that benefit the
whole community, we shape an expanded self that is no longer focused on
protecting a narrow, frightened one.6
Deweys belief in the power of love for objects esteemed good to help
us overcome fear is dramatically expressed in the lines he approvingly quotes
from George Eliots novel, Romola, in both the 1908 and 1932 editions of the
Ethics. In the passage that Dewey quotes, Eliots fictional character refers to the
importance of much feeling for the rest of the world and the ability to sacrifice
for an ideal that we esteem good as the means to the fullest happiness. Eliots
character declares:
118 STEPHEN M. FISHMAN AND LUCILLE MCCARTHY

It is only a poor sort of happiness that could ever come by caring very
much about our own narrow pleasures. We can only have the highest
happiness, such as goes along with being a great man, by having wide
thought and much feeling for the rest of the world as well as ourselves;
and this sort of happiness often brings so much pain with it, that we can
only tell it from pain by its being what we would choose before
everything else, because our souls see it is good (Dewey 1908, MW 5:
274; 1932, LW 7: 199).

Aside from overcoming fears and allowing us to develop expanded, more

exploratory and open selves, Dewey believes that braveness of soul helps us
see new challenges and setbacks as inevitable but not to be regretted. It helps us
see untoward events as new opportunities for experiencing the joys of growth
and expanded interests as we explore ways to deal with these challenges (1925,
LW 1: 49). As he remarks in his 1930 essay, What I Believe, there is joy even
in the midst of trouble and defeat whenever life-experiences are treated as
potential disclosures of meanings and values that are to be used as means to a
fuller and more significant future experience (1930, LW 5: 272).
Braveness of soul, for Dewey, also helps us accept that, given the
human condition, we cannot have everything we want (1932, LW 7: 189). We
accept the difficult choices we must make between competing goods. A person
with braveness of soul is willing to give up important desires in order to satisfy
other desires that reflection reveals as more worthy. For example, a person with
braveness of soul may risk her physical or financial well-being for the sake
promoting democratic living and making more readily available to others the
goods and practices that she finds most excellent in life. Otherwise put,
braveness of soul means having what Dewey calls strength of will: being able
to accept pain and hardship in pursuit of the common good (1932, LW 7: 190).
Deweys account of the significance of ethical love for braveness of soul
reflects his sensitivity to the apparently contradictory forces threaded throughout
life and is a characteristic that colors all his philosophic work. In particular, we
see this sensitivity in his counsel that, to be brave, we need to remember that
often the best way to satisfy our desire for control is to surrender it so that we
may be vanquished by an ideal. Reflecting this same sensitivity, he observes on
numerous occasions and in numerous contexts that often the long way around is
the shortest way home (1902, MW 1: 294; 1903, MW 3: 218; 1922b, MW 14:
177).
Regarding the relationship of Deweys view of the importance of bravery
for happiness and parallel discussions in psychology, we note that Deweys
approach foreshadows Viktor Frankls view of the power of meaning (1962).
We have in mind Frankls idea that people who have found meaning or a strong
goal in life will be brave and keep on pursuing their goal despite personal
suffering and very significant obstacles. One difference is Deweys emphasis on
 John Dewey on Happiness 119

the moral dimension of ones objects of devotion, i.e., the importance of ones
goal or goals needing to be chosen intelligently and wisely.
We also note that the insightfulness of Deweys blend of cognitive and
emotional strategies for overcoming fear becomes apparent when compared to
the efforts of current psychologists like Seligman and Haidt. The latter two
claim that pessimism is traceable to our pervasive fear or negativity bias that
serves the evolutionary function of helping us be alert to possible dangers but
that can lead to terrible unhappiness because it is, in its more extreme forms, no
longer appropriate in todays environment. However, unlike Dewey, their main
advice for overcoming such fear is primarily cognitive, a combination of arguing
with oneself and behavior modification. They suggest, for example, that when
we forecast bad consequences, we need to stop and look at the odds of disaster
actually occurring or continuing indefinitely (see Seligman 2002, 95101; Haidt
2006, 2839). Although Dewey offers some cognitive strategies for overcoming
fear and despair, like viewing untoward events as opportunities for growth, his
primary focus is on an emotional strategy or ethical love. This seems especially
powerful because love is the opposite emotion of fear. That is, we see these two
emotions love and fear as speaking, if you will, the same language. Thus, we
believe that Deweys appeal to ethical love to overcome fear and develop
braveness of soul is a better strategy for overcoming fear than Seligmans or
Haidts.

4.3 Equanimity of Soul

Regarding the importance of equanimity of soul as a component of happiness

and a consequence of ethical love, we believe that, for Dewey, a person who has
equanimity sees herself as in communion with, rather than alienated from,
nature. She adopts nature as one of the objects esteemed good since it is the
source of her own ability to love and further what she finds excellent in life. Her
ethical love of nature enables her to experience peace in her activities or during
her pursuit of the ideal that she has embraced and not just in brief moments of
rest or accomplishment (1922b, MW 14: 181). A person with equanimity has
respect for and harmony with the universe. She has an appreciation for the ways
nature enables her to further and perfect her ideals.
Reflecting his own reverence for natures potential to be idealized,
Dewey offers the following counsel. The way to finding unity with the world is
by becoming more sensitive to ones surroundings. We need to enlarge the self
by opening to nature and trusting its rhythms and potential for idealization.
Using an image of moonlight reflected on the water that is reminiscent of an
image Wordsworth used in The World Is Too Much With Us, Dewey lyrically
expresses his own experience of peace as feelings of belonging in the world. The
conclusion of a poem that Dewey most likely composed in his 50s or 60s reads
as follows:
120 STEPHEN M. FISHMAN AND LUCILLE MCCARTHY

Then rose the swelling moon

And gently sought its magic way
Across the waters. In a tune
Of silverd silence merged the day
With night, earth with sky, the world and me.
Through the moonlights softly shining grey
By the magic of inaction beguiled
Life and death slept close reconciled (1979, p. 20)

In this poem, Dewey expresses his belief that we are often out of tune with
nature. We are not moved by the ways in which what we see in the universe is
ours. There is no limit, he writes, to the capacity of immediate sensuous
experience to absorb into itself meanings and values that in and of themselves
that in the abstract would be designated ideal and spiritual (1934b, LW
10: 3536). In other words, if we can get in tune with the universe, then the
objects esteemed good that can be promoted and made more available to others
are infinite. We have a chance to experience an evolving harmony of self and
world that enables us to keep on keeping on, to continue working to realize our
ethically loved ideal, despite lifes inevitable defeats and frustrations. It is the
sort of harmony and belonging that Dewey expressed in his poem as he gazed
one night at a moonlit bay.
We also interpret Deweys counsel to expand the self so that we feel
integrated with the world as a way of asking us to put aside our egos or narrow
selves, and ethical love helps us do this. It helps us see that our effort to work
intelligently on behalf of the goods we most esteem is not just our own idea or
the idea of those in agreement with us. Our efforts in service of the common
good are an expression of what is intelligent in nature. In a passage from
Deweys Experience and Nature that John Herman Randall, Jr., Deweys
student and longtime Columbia University colleague, calls the most eloquent
passage in Deweys most important book (Randall 1940, 125), Dewey writes,

Men move between extremes. They conceive of themselves as gods, or

feign a powerful and cunning god as an ally who bends the world to do
their bidding and meet their wishes. Disillusioned, they disown the world
that disappoints them; and hugging ideals to themselves as their own
possession, stand in haughty aloofness apart from the hard course of
events that pays so little heed to our hopes and aspirations. But a mind
that has opened itself to experience ... knows that its juvenile assumption
of power and achievement is not a dream to be wholly forgotten. It
implies a unity with the universe that is to be preserved. The belief, and
the effort of thought and struggle which it inspires are also the doing of
the universe, and they in some way, however slight, carry the universe
forward (1925, LW 1: 313314).
 John Dewey on Happiness 121

Dewey recognizes that in a post-Darwinian world, one without divine

guarantees of the triumph of goodness or the better over the worse, it is easy to
give up or conclude that, in pursuing our esteemed object, we are working
fruitlessly on our own. We need to avoid despair or the cynicism reflected in
Macbeths view that life is a tale told by an idiot (1934b, LW 10: 197) by being
less egotistical and remembering that our energy, hopes, and desires are
expressions of the universe that has spawned us. Thus, our ideals are not our
own possession. We should know that they are also the doing of the
universe or in harmony with significant energies in the world. According to
Dewey, a keen sense that devotion to our ideals is part of the doing of the
universe yields the equanimity that is a means to steady and fulfilling efforts on
behalf of the common good.
With this fuller picture in mind of Deweys view of stable character and
braveness and equanimity of soul as marks of full happiness, we can understand
why he views ethical love as the means to the sort of disposition or character
that he claims is accompanied by the highest happiness. Stability, braveness, and
equanimity of soul are expressions of ones moral love and ones inner harmony
and integration with the world.
In the section that follows, we consider three potential criticisms of
Deweys theory of happiness. These are (1) Deweys view of happiness is based
on a flawed conception of human nature, (2) Deweys view of happiness is
elitist, and (3) Deweys view of happiness leads to a frustrating, never-ending
cycle of gain and loss.

5. Potential Criticisms of Deweys Approach to Happiness and Possible

Deweyan Rejoinders

5.1.1 Criticism Number One: Deweys View of Happiness

is Based on a Flawed View of Human Nature

Those who would reject Deweys approach to happiness, in particular his stress
on the importance of ethical love, might claim that it is based on a flawed
understanding of human nature, a too optimistic view of our native sympathies
and ability to overcome narrow self-centeredness. One such critic is Reinhold
Niebuhr. Writing in 1932, the same year that the revised edition of Dewey and
Tufts Ethics was published, Niebuhr criticizes Dewey and his education and
social scientist followers for wanting to save society by increasing the social
and political intelligence of the general community through the agency of the
school (Niebuhr 1932, 212). As opposed to Dewey, Niebuhr argues that change
of social institutions requires force: Since reason is always, to some degree, the
servant of interest in a social situation, social injustice cannot be resolved by
moral and rational suasion alone, as the educator and social scientist usually
believe. Conflict is inevitable, and in this conflict power must be challenged by
122 STEPHEN M. FISHMAN AND LUCILLE MCCARTHY

power. That fact is not recognized by most of the educators.... (1932, pp. xiv
xv).
Those, who, like Neibuhr, charge Dewey with an overly optimistic view
of our capacity for devotion to the common good might add to their argument by
citing Jeremy Benthams analysis of human motivation. Bentham claims that the
only motive we have for being considerate and helpful to others is believing that
there is a strong chance of profiting by being so (1879/1789, chap. XVII, sec.
VII, 312313).

5.1.2 How Dewey Might Answer Criticisms of His View of Human Nature

Although Dewey is often said to lack a sense of the tragic in life and an
understanding of humans capacity for cruelty and insensitivity to others
(Boisvert 1999, Glaude, Jr. 2004, McDermott 1991, xxxii; Rockefeller 1993,
486487; West 1993, 108), he recognizes that all of us have the potential to be
cruel and horrifically insensitive to the impact of our actions upon others. As
examples, we note that in 1934, as the world struggled to recover from the great
economic depression, Dewey speaks about the staggering corruption in U.S.
politics and the widespread brutality and oppression in U.S. commerce
(Dewey, 1934a LW 9: 49). Likewise, in 1939, as World War II rages in Europe,
Dewey speaks about the Fascist and Stalinist use of purges, executions, and
concentration camps and their reign of sadism (1939 LW 13: 88, 89). Despite
such recognitions of our potential for unimaginable brutality toward one
another, Dewey continues to maintain that, as social creatures, we also have
deep needs for collaboration with others. In two of his early works on education
his positive view of human potential is loud and clear. He writes, the child is
born with a desire to give out, to do, and this means to serve (1897, EW 5: 64;
1909, MW 4: 275). Twenty-five years later, in 1934, we hear his same positive
view of human nature in A Common Faith. Dewey observes,

[As the result of] activity pursued in behalf of an ideal end against
obstacles and in spite of threats of personal loss because of conviction of
its general and enduring value... [m]any a person, inquirer, artist,
philanthropist, citizen, men and women in the humblest walks of life,
have achieved, without presumption and without display, ... [an enduring]
unification of themselves and of their relations to the conditions of
existence. It remains to extend their spirit and inspiration to ever wider
numbers (1934 LW 9: 15).

Unfortunately, according to Dewey, this native desire is not developed and, at

worst, is substantially frustrated by many of our current educational, political,
and social institutions. Further, Dewey believes that this native need for
harmony with others is the foundation of our desire to lead meaningful lives, a
 John Dewey on Happiness 123

desire to devote ourselves to ideals shared with others, including those from
earlier and later generations.
In addition to pointing to our native needs and capacities as social
creatures, Dewey might respond by stressing that he does not believe, as critics
like Niebuhr assume, that intelligent, responsible behavior results from simply
appealing to reason or cultivating our ability to calculate and foresee
consequences. Dewey argues forcefully that all the reasoning in the world will
be fruitless as a force for social reform if it does not stir our emotions (1908,
MW 5: 231). Without such emotional commitment, reasons will, at best, result
in half-hearted rather than wholehearted pursuit of esteemed ideals. This is why
he insists that intelligent, responsible behavior is dependent upon the
development of character and, therefore, upon the cultivation of conditions that
develop our desire to give out, to do, and to serve. In short, wholehearted
commitment to intelligent, responsible behavior depends upon nurturing our
capacity for ethical love.

5.2.1 Criticism Number Two: Deweys View of Happiness is Elitist

Some might criticize as elitist Deweys claim that the means to full happiness is
yielding to the call of ethical love and intelligently devoting oneself to what one,
on intelligent reflection, most values. After all, the vast majority of people in the
world are poor and do not have opportunities to choose life-work that is
compatible with their talents or the time to wait until they are vanquished or
called by an ideal to which they can respond intelligently and wholeheartedly.

5.2.2 How Dewey Might Answer Charges of Elitism

Answering on behalf of Dewey, we would point out that he is not nave. He

realizes that in an economy dominated by global capitalism much labor is
mechanical rather than fulfilling in the broad sense in which Dewey uses the
term fulfilling. He certainly is aware that many workplace situations, even
those in which highly trained professional find themselves, leave employees
with little chance to exercise their creativity or develop their individual talents in
collaborative exchanges with others (1916, MW 9: 326327; 1934c, LW 9: 202
203).
In addition to acknowledging the widespread presence of harsh working
conditions, Dewey also acknowledges the role of luck in finding meaningful
work, another way in which he is realistic about the human situation. At his 70th
birthday, he said that he had the sheer luck or fortune to find a calling that
was congenial to his temperament (Dewey, 1929, LW 5: 420). Yet, despite his
acknowledgement of the difficulty of finding a calling, including the role of
fortune, he claims that anyone, no matter his or her circumstances, can give
themselves intelligently and wholeheartedly to their daily activities. In the
passage in A Common Faith from which we have already quoted, Dewey
124 STEPHEN M. FISHMAN AND LUCILLE MCCARTHY

observes that many a person, even in the humblest walks of life, has achieved
unification of themselves and of their relations to the conditions of existence.
In the same passage, Dewey goes on to say that this unification carries them
through periods of darkness and despair to such an extent that they [the periods
of darkness and despair] lose their usual depressive character (1934a, LW 9:
11).
In sum, Dewey claims that, no matter ones station in life, full happiness
and the stability, braveness, and equanimity of soul of which it is an
accompaniment is a consequence of being able to see ones life as an
expression of whatever is intelligent in the universe. In other words, people who
possess a piety or reverence for nature are aware that ethical love and their
intelligent, wholehearted efforts to actualize their ideals are not alien to the
world but are connected to impulses that have a place in the world. Although
Dewey is very clear that the universe often is indifferent to or acts as angry
stepfather to our ideals, the fact that sometimes we are able to bring our ideals
into reality can keep us from despairing, from losing faith in intelligent,
compassionate action and seeing our labors as isolated and without intimate
connection to the universe. If people can sense this connection, trust in it, and be
comforted by it, then, no matter their station in life and the risks involved in
furthering their ideals, they can experience what Dewey himself experienced as
the enduring happiness that accompanies the peace that passes all
understanding (2005, letter #04749, 18 October 1927).7 That is, they too can
experience the sense of harmony with the world and equanimity that that led
Dewey, echoing the book of Job, to declare:

When we have used our thought to the utmost and thrown into the
moving unbalanced balance of things our puny strength, we know that
though the universe slay us, still we may trust, for our lot is one with
whatever is good in existence (1925, LW 1: 314).

If we assume, then, as we believe Dewey assumed, that feelings of reverence

and awe for our ability to further whatever is good in existence are available
to all, then his claims about the ability of people in the humblest walks of life to
experience ethical love seem reasonable.

5.3.1 Criticism Number Three: Deweys View of Happiness Leads

to a Frustrating, Never-Ending Cycle of Gain and Loss

Deweys view of full happiness as a byproduct of an ever-expanding self, one

devoted to an esteemed ideal, may seem like the path to a frustrating cycle of
gain and loss or, at best, an elaborate justification of the Protestant work ethic.
According to Dewey, to stop growing or continually expanding ones interests is
to diminish oneself. It is to become static or to merely subsist (1934b, LW 10:
1920). In other words, a critic of Deweys conception of the fullest happiness
 John Dewey on Happiness 125

might say that, although the consequence of not being continually and fully
engrossed in ones work is no longer divine punishment, the upshot of Deweys
message is akin to the Christian message: work and you will be saved. Milton
Mayeroff questions Dewey by developing this line of criticism. He argues that
Dewey focuses too much on the experiences of problem solving and growth of
the self and not enough on experiences characterized by lack of purpose, lack
of doing and manipulating, lack of sharing, and lack of the immediately practical
and social (1963, 146). Indeed, Dewey makes it clear that to rest on ones
laurels or to continue to relish deep and wide harmonies already achieved is to
withdraw from life. Such moments of equilibrium, he warns, are also the first
moments of the challenge to develop new and even greater harmonies (1922b,
MW 14: 197).8
This concern that Deweys view of happiness can be used to keep us on
an exhausting treadmill of continual flights was brought home to us when Steve
Fishman taught a course titled, Philosophy and the Quest for Happiness in
spring semester 2007. Fishmans reading list included selections from classic
texts by Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Epictetus, John Stuart Mill, William James,
Bertrand Russell, and Dewey. He also asked students to read selections from the
work of Thich Nhat Hanh, a Buddhist monk living in France, as well as works
by several contemporary psychologists. Of these authors writings on happiness,
Hanhs work was far and away the one that his students found most helpful.
When Fishman asked them to write, for their final essay for the course, about the
readings that were most important to them, 11 of the 16 students included Hanh.
What most impressed them was Hanhs view that happiness is relatively easy to
achieve. All it takes, Hanh counsels, is reducing ones emphasis on rushing
about and the consequent anxiety to perform well that we have inherited from
our ancestors and absorbed from our culture. In one of the chapters Fishmans
students read from Hanhs book, Touching Peace, Hanh observes,

We all have the tendency to struggle in our bodies and our minds. We
believe that happiness is possible only in the future. That is why the
practice I have arrived is very important. The realization that we have
already arrived, that we do not have to travel any further, that we are
already here, can give us peace and joy. The conditions for our happiness
are already sufficient. We only need to allow ourselves to be in the
present moment, and we will be able to touch them (1992, 3536).

Typical of the majority of Fishmans students reactions to Hahn was the

response of Andrew, a 20-year-old, junior, Criminal Justice major who, in his
final essay, wrote:

[E]veryone seems to be in such a rush to get from A to B and then to C,

that they are not even aware of what is happening right then.... I agree
with Hanh that it is a pity that people live like this. I was once a part of
126 STEPHEN M. FISHMAN AND LUCILLE MCCARTHY

this group before I read Touching Peace. I have always enjoyed driving;
ever since I received my license, what I felt was freedom, freedom from
everyone in the world. It was only my car and me: total bliss came out of
the experience. Then on some days that exhilaration would vanish.... I
could only think about how late I was or what I needed to do when I
arrived at the destination. I forgot the pleasure that I once had. After
reading Touching Peace, I have regained that sense of pleasure in my
driving and now in everything I do.

Fishman was puzzled why Hanh received such positive attention, while his
students responses to the other authors were much less enthusiastic. From
comments his students made in their essays, as well as in their weekly
homework papers, he gathered that most of them enrolled in the course because
they felt stressed and anxious about their lives, both in and out of school. As
opposed to Dewey who was counseling them to focus on expansion of the self
and the possibilities of ethical love, Hanh was claiming that happiness was right
at hand. All they had to do was pay attention to their breath as they inhaled and
exhaled, to the miracle of their eyesight, and to the feel of the earth under their
feet, for example, as they walk from the school parking lot to the university
buildings.

5.3.2 How Dewey Might Answer the Criticism that His View
of Happiness leads to a Tread-Mill Existence

Deweys first response might be to offer a prudential argument in support of his

position. Given that the world we live in is one of continual process, to try to
hold onto a mental/emotional state like happiness is unwise. If we do yield to
this temptation and try to protect ourselves against change, we will still be
subject to the inevitable challenges that continual process brings. By focusing on
protecting ourselves, we will be fighting off change rather than trying to use it to
our advantage. We are in a better position regarding natural flux, Dewey might
continue, if we become proactive by accepting a dynamic goal like growth
instead of a static goal like protection of what we have already achieved. This
sort of outgoing and positive stance allows us to be on the alert for ways to adapt
to lifes inevitable changes in order to further our ideals rather than focusing on
trying to fend them off. Otherwise put, spending our energy avoiding change
may, at best, bring us relief, whereas spending our energy perfecting and
expanding what we most love may, indirectly, bring us the fullest happiness.9
Adopting an expansive stance gives us a chance to realize what we desire as
opposed to a more negative, inward focused stance that limits us to avoiding
what we fear. Dewey himself hints at such a prudential argument in Experience
and Nature. He observes,
 John Dewey on Happiness 127

Those who do not fare forth and take the risks attendant upon the
formation of new objects and the growth of a new self, are subjected
perforce to inevitable change of the settled and closed world they have
made their own. Identification of the bias and preference of selfhood with
the process of intelligent remaking achieves an indestructible union of the
instrumental and the final. For this bias can be satisfied no matter what
the frustration of other desires and endeavors (1925, LW 1: 189).

A second possible Deweyan response to the criticism that his position leads to a
wearying cycle of gain and loss rests upon his faith in human intelligence and
our ability to use natures opportunities to bring our well-thought-out ideals into
reality. Almost in anticipation of the objection we have raised about the
continuous, relentless demand for an expanded self that his view of happiness
entails, Dewey argues that it is possible to overcome this cycle. By fully
embracing our ideal and appreciating our place in nature as a unique agent of an
intelligized ideal, we can be peaceful and without anxiety in the midst of our
work. Put otherwise, the key to both working hard and being calm while doing
so is to see ourselves as expressions of forces within nature that are much larger
than our limited selves. If we can feel this inexpressible dimension of our lives
and our actions, then we can find peace and rest in our activities rather than after
them or in brief interludes between them (1922b, MW 14: 181).
Our final speculation about how Dewey might respond to the criticism
that his view of the fullest possible human happiness puts too much attention on
growth and problem-solving and not enough on lack of doing rests upon what, in
Art As Experience, he refers to as negative capability (1934b, LW 10: 39).
More specifically, Dewey might argue that his view of full happiness as
allowing us to be simultaneously active and at peace is an attempt to maintain
both the spiritualisms of Western and Eastern cultures.
When Fishman further reflected on his students enthusiasm for the
approach of Thich Naht Hanh to happiness, it occurred to him that Hanh, like
Dewey, was recommending that we lose ourselves to find ourselves. However,
Hanh counsels that to do this we need to move in a direction that seems to be the
opposite of the direction that Dewey recommends. Regarding full happiness,
Dewey urges us, as we have explained, to expand ourselves. He urges us to lose
our narrow self to find an expanded self by working to realize an ideal, a well
thought out vision of a situation that perfects and makes more widely possible
the experiences we most value. Hanh, on the other hand, seems to counsel us to
narrow ourselves, to focus on gaining a more basic, primitive self rather than on
gaining an expanded self. For example, Hanh suggests that we can experience
happiness as a byproduct of meditating on our breath (1992, 11). Happiness and
peace are within us, not outside, and finding them does not require devotion to
reshaping the world. In The Heart of the Buddhas Teaching, Hahn writes,
128 STEPHEN M. FISHMAN AND LUCILLE MCCARTHY

Every day gives us a wonderful opportunity to be happy ourselves and

become a place of refuge for others. We dont need to become anything
else. We dont to perform some particular act. We only need to be happy
in the present moment, and we can be of service to those we love and to
our whole society. Aimlessness is stopping and realizing the happiness
that is already available. If someone asks us how long he has to practice
in order to be happy, we can tell him that he can be happy right now! The
practice of apranihita, aimlessness, is the practice of freedom (1999,
155).

Otherwise expressed, the difference between Dewey and Hahn is that Dewey
seems to be counseling that an important key to happiness is full attention to the
journey, to the union of the instrumental and final (LW 1: 189). By contrast,
Hahn seems to be counseling that an important key to happiness is contentment
with what we already have because we have already arrived.
Despite our presenting Dewey and Hanh as totally opposed, we
acknowledge that there are important similarities in their views of the world and
the human condition. That is, Deweys piety toward nature and his post-
Darwinian view of the world share features with Hanhs Buddhist orientation.10
Both men view reality as in process and both are strongly sensitive to what Hanh
would call inter-being (1999, 225226) or what Dewey would call our
constant transactions with others, our culture, and nature. There are other
passages in Deweys work, perhaps reflective of his years in the Far East (1919
1921), which also have parallels in Buddhist thought. For example, in In
Response, Dewey warns that we are too hurried and impatient. We distrust the
slow processes of growth (1929, LW 5: 422). In addition, in Experience and
Nature, as we have noted, he asks us to give up our narrow egos and see our
love for our esteemed ideals as part of the intention and energy of the world, not
just our personal possession (1925, LW 1: 313314). Likewise, in Art as
Experience, he writes that it is our inability to surrender our ego, a stubborn
reluctance to give up our narrow perspective that keeps us from feeling unified
with the world (1934b, LW 10: 199). Despite these similarities, we suggest that
a Deweyan way of honoring both the value of surrendering an inwardly focused
self to gain a broader self and the value of surrendering an outwardly focused
self to gain a simpler, inner directed self depends upon using our negative
capability rather than upon achieving a seamless synthesis of the two. We find
support for our speculation in an essay of Deweys, Some Factors in Mutual
National Understanding, that was published in 1921 while he was still in China.
In this 1921 article, Dewey contrasts the spiritualism of the West and the
spiritualism of the East. In the West, Dewey observes, to be spiritual is to be
active and busy. It is to work for the improvement of the community, to respond
actively to problems that impede democratic living and the possibilities of
making meaningful experiences available to all. Quite a different conception of
spirituality, according to Dewey, is prevalent in the East. In the East to be
 John Dewey on Happiness 129

spiritual is to prize leisure and the cultivation of meditation [and] quiet, calm
appreciation of the beauties of nature, literature and art (1921, MW 13: 265).
Dewey adds that Eastern cultivation of meditation is seen in the West as a form
of selfishness, since it does not promote social progress, whereas the East sees
Western public service and progress as another form of Western materialism.
We find support for our suggestion that Dewey might rely on our
negative capability as a way of honoring our need for both public service and
private meditation in his claim, in this same 1921 essay, that there is really no
way to choose between the Western and Eastern spiritualism. He writes that
there is no common measure, no higher common standard, by which to judge
which view of spirituality as a means to happiness is superior. As a result, he
advises that the most reasonable conclusion would be that a true ideal includes
factors from both sides; that up to the present each point of view is one-sided
and has something to learn from the other (1921, MW 13: 266). Pursuing this
line of Deweys thinking, it would follow that the fullest human happiness
requires keeping both ideals in mind without yielding to the inclination to
choose between them or try to reconcile them in an encompassing synthesis.

6. Conclusion

From our exploration of Deweys approach to happiness, three features stand

out. One, Dewey, goes against the grain of much contemporary psychologic and
popular thought by linking morality and the fullest possible human happiness.
He defends his approach by noting that there are different kinds or qualities of
happiness. He then argues that the highest happiness is an accompaniment of a
disposition that reflects sufficient inner harmony and evolving integration with
the world that we display stability, braveness, and equanimity even in the midst
of trouble and defeat. He also claims that such happiness is a consequence of
ethical love, an expanding self that is devoted to the actualization of objects
esteemed good. In sum, full happiness, for Dewey, depends upon developing a
moral self, one engrossed and identified with an ideal to which one is wisely
devoted.
Two, Deweys account of happiness goes against the grain of current
approaches to happiness by stressing the need to put into dynamic harmony the
competing forces within ourselves and nature. For example, he is very much
aware that, as biological creatures in an uncannily unstable world, we seek to
shape an environment that is more and more under our control. Nevertheless, he
counsels that if people are to experience full happiness, at times they need to
give up control and allow themselves to be called or vanquished by an ideal.
Likewise, although he is aware of our basic instinct for personal safety, he
counsels that achieving full happiness depends upon braveness of soul. As a
result, he says that at times we need to risk even serious personal pain and loss
in wholehearted and intelligent response to the demands of ethical love and our
esteemed ideals if we are to experience enduring happiness.
130 STEPHEN M. FISHMAN AND LUCILLE MCCARTHY

Finally, Dewey goes against the grain of much current thinking about
happiness by urging us to pursue happiness indirectly. Although he grants that
past moments of happiness and anticipations of future moments of happiness
may spur the pursuit of ideals that are not easily realized, he counsels against
making happiness a conscious end-in-view. To make it a direct goal risks
developing a split focus. That is, we may end up keeping one eye on what we
are about and the other on the effects of our activities upon us. This sort of split
focus, according to Dewey, inhibits our chances for ethical love. It keeps us
from totally identifying with our intelligently chosen ideal and its demands, an
identification that, in his view, is the means to an expanding, passionately
reflective self and the supreme happiness that accompanies it.

NOTES

1. Stanford psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky, herself the author of a popular self-

help book titled The How of Happiness, calls this outpouring a frenzy and reports that
newspapers, magazines, television channels, blogs, and podcasts are saturated with
pieces on happiness (Lyubomirsky 2008, 2). Another reflection of this new and expanded
interest in happiness is that in the thirty years between 1930 through 1960, only 99
articles dealing with the subject were published in social science journals. However, in
the following thirty-year period, between 1960 and 1990, thirty times as many, almost
3000 articles, were published in these same journals (Marar 2003, 28; Nettle 2003, 28).
2. Dewey uses a variety of terms when referring to what he finds to be the highest
possible human experience of happiness. In addition to calling it the final form of
happiness, he also calls it the true and the supreme happiness (1908, MW 5: 274).
3. We note that when Dewey speaks of harmony, he has in mind an ever
evolving rather than a static harmony; it is what he describes as a unity in variety that is
dynamic (LW 10: 166).
4. Dewey explicitly distinguishes his use of the word soul from its historical use
to refer to a mysterious, non-natural force. For Dewey, to attribute soul to someone is to
refer to the quality of his or her activity. For example, an individual with braveness of
soul does not respond mechanically or in a routine way to major challenges. Rather, she
act courageously while also exhibiting unusual sensitivity to the persons involved in these
challenges. In other words, her actions exhibit depth or soul (LW 1: 223).
5. John Stuart Mill foreshadows Dewey in advising that we pursue happiness
indirectly: I never indeed, wavered in the conviction that happiness is the test of all rules
of conduct, and the end of life. But I now thought that this end was only to be attained by
not making it the direct end. They only are happy (I thought) who have their minds fixed
on some object other than their own happiness; on the happiness of others, on the
improvement of mankind, even on some art or pursuit followed not as a means, but as
itself an ideal end (1969/1873, 8586.) More recently, Joel Feinberg calls this the
famous paradox of hedonism. He advises that to derive satisfaction one must ordinarily
first desire something other than satisfaction, and then find the means to get what one
desires (1971, 493). Similarly, Elizabeth Telfer acknowledges the importance of
absorption in things from which happiness springs. However, she points out that it
makes sense to occasionally review ones situation and re-order ones priorities if one is
 John Dewey on Happiness 131

not happy. That is, pursuing happiness indirectly is not incompatible with recognizing it
as a goal and evaluating our best means of reaching it (1980, 3). For an informative
discussion of the advice to seek happiness indirectly and the so-called paradoxes of
happiness, see Martin 2008, 172.
6. Both John Stuart Mill and Bertrand Russell claim, like Dewey, that expanding
ones interests is an important means to happiness. However, the expanded self that Mill
and Russell urge us to develop seems less directly focused on integrating personal growth
and social reform than Deweys. Mill writes, When people who are tolerably fortunate
in the their outward lot do not find in life sufficient enjoyment to make it valuable to
them, the cause generally is caring for nobody but themselves.... Next to selfishness, the
principal cause which makes life unsatisfactory is want of mental cultivation. A
cultivated mind ... finds sources of inexhaustible interests in all that surrounds it: in the
objects of nature, the achievement of art, the imaginations of poetry, the incidents of
history, the ways of mankind, past and present, and their prospects for the future.
(2001/1863, 1314.) Bertrand Russell similarly observes, The man who can forget his
worries by means of a genuine interest in, say, the Council of Trent, or the life history of
stars, will find that, when he returns from his excursion into the impersonal world, he has
acquired a poise and calm which enable him to deal with his worries in the best way, and
he will meantime have experienced a genuine even if temporary happiness. The secret of
happiness is this: let your interests be as wide as possible, and let your reactions to the
things and persons that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile
(1996/1930, 123).
7. Three days later, on 21 October 1927, in a second letter by Dewey to Skudder
Klyce, Dewey gives some details about what led him to experience the peace that passes
all understanding.

I believe that I could do the best I can do by means of helping people to see these
continuities [between mind and body, man and the world, mechanism and
purpose, facts and meaning, matter and mind, science and art, individual and
universal, psychology and logic] and the movement of connections where in the
minds of most men of action as well as thinkers barriers, divisions, and
fixities exist. And I repeat I am convinced, by experience as well as by emotional
predilection, that when this is gained, the perception and emotion of unity and
totality by the very constitution of man so much that I am not especially anxious
about what form it takes, especially what verbal form, as long as the reality is
attained. You ask me, how in effect, how I got the experience of oneness which is
the source of emotional peace. Well I got it first by Intuition based on
experiences, a few typical ones. Then I got a bit by discriminating thought, hard
work too, in examining in large number the current dualisms and resolving them
into dynamic continuities (2005, letter #04751).

Regarding a sense of peace that lasts through any amount of vicissitudes of

circumstances internal or external, Dewey says it comes about in a multitude of ways
(1932a, LW 9: 11). In A Common Faith, he names three of these ways: devotion to a
cause, a passage of poetry that opens a new perspective, and philosophic reflection
(1932a, LW 9: 12). In his 21 October 1927 letter to Klyce, Dewey gives particulars about
the third way that he mentions, the sort of philosophic reflection that lay behind his own
enduring sense of peace. In his discussion of happiness and the importance of intelligent
and wholehearted identification of the self with an esteemed ideal, we have particulars
132 STEPHEN M. FISHMAN AND LUCILLE MCCARTHY

about what Dewey had in mind by the first way that he names, devotion to a cause.
Finally, in Deweys own lyrical expression of his mystical, imagination-based experience
of full unity with the world, we have a possible example of what he had in mind by a
passage of poetry that opens a new perspective (1979, 20).
8. Deweys emphasis on ethical love and expansion of the self as keys to
happiness is also at odds with those who, like Walt Whitman, take as their paradigm of
happiness the sort of animal wisdom that is reflected in some creatures apparent
aimlessness and contentment with their situation. In Song of Myself, Whitman tells us:

I think I could turn and live with animals, theyre so placid and self containd,
I stand and look at them long and long.
They do not sweat and whine about their condition,
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,
Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things,
Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago,
Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.
(quoted in Russell, 1990/1930, epigraph)

9. See Nesse 1999, 442.

10. For an insightful and clearly presented exploration of similarities and
differences between Deweys philosophy and Buddhist thought, see Rockefeller 1989.

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 John Dewey on Happiness 133

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Stephen M. Fishman
Professor of Philosophy
Philosophy Department
University of North Carolina, Charlotte
Charlotte, North Carolina 28223
United States

Lucille McCarthy
Professor of English
English Department
University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Baltimore, Maryland 21250
United States
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