Book: Human Nature and Conduct

Overview
John Dewey offers a naturalistic account of human conduct that puts habit, intelligence, and social environment at the center of moral explanation. He treats human nature as a dynamic, malleable set of tendencies shaped by biological predisposition and social experience, rejecting the notion of fixed moral absolutes. Behavior and ethics are analyzed as products of interaction between stable dispositions and adaptive problem-solving capacities.

Habit as the Ground of Conduct
Habits are presented as the primary force organizing everyday behavior, providing continuity and efficiency by channeling perceptions and actions. Dewey emphasizes that habits are not mere mechanical repetitions but organized responses that embody past learning and environmental adjustment. Because habits shape how situations are interpreted, they also determine the character of moral response until disrupted by new consequences.

Intelligence and the Reconstruction of Habits
Intelligence enters when habitual action meets resistance or unforeseen consequences, producing uncertainty and inquiry. Thoughtful reflection is an instrument for reconstructing habits, testing alternatives, anticipating outcomes, and deliberately reorganizing action to better fit conditions. Dewey describes moral deliberation as an experimental activity: hypotheses about action are formed, consequences observed, and habits adjusted accordingly.

The Social Environment and Moral Formation
Social institutions, customs, and relationships profoundly shape habits by providing recurrent contexts in which behavior is learned and reinforced. Moral qualities are therefore communal as much as individual, emerging from shared ways of perceiving and responding to persistent situations. Reform of conduct requires attention to altering social conditions and institutions that sustain harmful or limiting habits.

Pragmatic Ethics and Moral Judgment
Dewey reframes ethical evaluation in pragmatic terms, judging conduct by its consequences for human growth, cooperation, and reconstruction of experience. Right action is that which promotes the development of more adaptive, freer, and socially productive habits; wrong action locks individuals and groups into patterns that impede adjustment and intelligence. Moral language functions as a tool for guiding experimental social action, not as expression of immutable rules.

Implications for Education and Democracy
Education receives central importance as the deliberate cultivation of habits and capacities for inquiry, communication, and cooperative problem-solving. Democratic life is viewed as an ongoing process of social intelligence where public deliberation reshapes shared habits and institutions. Policy, law, and schooling should therefore aim to create conditions for reflective growth rather than merely enforce conformity.

Legacy and Contemporary Relevance
The account integrates psychology, social theory, and ethical reflection, influencing pragmatist philosophy, progressive education, and social reform movements. Dewey's insistence that moral life is rooted in habituated behavior and public inquiry anticipates later work in behavioral science and democratic theory. The framework remains useful for thinking about moral education, institutional design, and the role of reflective practice in ethical improvement.