he mental modeling which must occur when any individual is actively contemplating an ethical decision seems fundamental to the process of imagination and introspection. John Dewey’s dramatic rehearsal accurately captures the paradigm of ontological fantasy in order to inform and instruct the choices we make. One must always posit a theoretical scenario constructed by the mind in order to perceive possible actions and consequences. It is only when this idea accurately correlates to our reality can said presupposition be confirmed as true. Dewey’s interpretation of dramatic rehearsal strives for intellectual honesty and the realistic portrayal of each character involved. His method deviates from pure uncertainty to greater probability concerning the verisimilitude and depiction of such creative exposition. The practice of theorized scenario’s seem ingrained within the evolutionary perspective of the hominid who has had to evolve to develop causal inference concerning action and result in nature. Through imagination, man ascended from barbaric instinct to reasonable probability in which to predict and survive. Unfortunately many of the images present in the theoretical rehearsal rarely correlate to that of reality. Most individuals do not posses the proper intellect or understanding of human motivation in which to depict accurately the nature of action. This dramatic performance becomes unfounded fantasy creating crippling dissociation with theater opposing truth. Dewey however has explained this theory of rehearsal accurately describing our methodology to predict.

Dewey’s profound assertion theorizes a universal state of nature in which dramatic rehearsal remains the natural phenomena to arise in all instances of ethical deliberation. This heretofore conclusion seems undeniable when considered from the ontological observation of conscious contemplation and decision making within the metaphysical domain. One must always consider the outcome of one’s actions, therefore engaging in some form of theoretical deliberation within one’s mind. The universality of this claim becomes a striking inference applicable to all human action and consideration.

Excerpts from Dewey’s Dramatic Rehearsal Below:

The Need for Deliberation

Dewey writes: “[Aristotle’s virtuous] man can [usually] trust for enlightenment to his direct responses. [But he can count on this] only in situations which are, on the whole, familiar. The better he is, the more likely he is to be perplexed as to what to do in novel, complicated situations. Then the only way out is through examination, inquiry, [deliberation] turning things over in his mind till something presents itself, perhaps after prolonged mental fermentation” (Ethics, 1932, 272–273).

1. Deliberation as Dramatic Rehearsal. First Version

Our first problem is then to investigate the nature of ordinary judgments upon what it is best or wise to do . . . the nature of deliberation.

. . . Deliberation is a dramatic rehearsal (in imagination) of various competing possible lines of action. It starts from the blocking of efficient overt action, due to that conflict of prior habit and newly released impulse . . . Then each habit, each impulse, involved in the temporary suspens[ion] of overt action takes its turn in being tried out. Deliberation is an experiment in finding out what the various lines of possible action are really like. It is an experiment in making various combinations of selected elements of habits and impulses, to see what the resultant action would be like if it were entered upon. But the trial is in imagination, not in overt fact. The experiment is carried on by tentative rehearsals in thought, which do not affect physical facts outside the body. Thought runs ahead and foresees outcomes, and thereby avoids having to await the instruction of actual failure and disaster . . . Each conflicting habit and impulse takes its turn in projecting itself upon the screen of imagination. It unrolls a picture of its future history, of the career it would have if it were given head. . . .

If activity were directly exhibited it would result in certain experiences, contacts with the environment. It would succeed by making environing objects, things and persons, co-partners in its forward movement; or else it would run against obstacles and be troubled, possibly defeated. These experiences of contact with objects and their qualities give meaning, character, to an otherwise fluid, unconscious activity. . . . As has been remarked, the object is that which objects. There is no difference in this respect between a visible course of conduct and one proposed in deliberation.

We have no direct consciousness of what we purpose to do. We can judge its nature, assign its meaning, only by following it into the situations whither it leads, noting the objects against which it runs and seeing how they rebuff or unexpectedly encourage it. In imagination as in fact we know a road only by what we see as we travel on it. Moreover the objects which prick out the course of a proposed act until we can see its design also serve to direct eventual overt activity.

Every object hit upon as the habit traverses its imaginary path has a direct effect upon existing activities. It reinforces, inhibits, redirects habits already working or stirs up others which had not previously actively entered in. In thought as well as in overt action, the objects experienced in following out a course of action attract, repel, satisfy, annoy, promote and retard (Human Nature and Conduct, 1922, pp. 132–134)..

We think, through imagination, of objects into which in the future some course of action will run, and we are now delighted or depressed, pleased or pained at what is presented. This running commentary of likes and dislikes, attractions and disdains, joys and sorrows, reveals to any man who is intelligent enough to note them and to study their occasions his own character. It instructs him as to the composition and direction of the activities that make him what he is. To know what jars an activity and what agrees with it is to know something important about that activity and about ourselves (HNC: 140).

Thus deliberation proceeds. To say that at last it ceases is to say that choice, decision, takes place (Human Nature and Conduct: 134) [For Dewey’s account of “choice, decision” see #11, below.]

2. Deliberation as Dramatic Rehearsal. 2nd Version

Deliberation is actually an imaginative rehearsal of various courses of conduct. We give

way, in our mind, to some impulse; we try, in our mind, some plan. Following its career through various steps, we find ourselves in imagination in the presence of the consequences that would follow: and as we then like and approve, or dislike and disapprove, these consequences, we find the original impulse or plan good or bad. Deliberation is dramatic and active, not mathematical and impersonal; and hence it has the intuitive, the direct factor in it. The advantage of a mental trial, prior to the overt trial (for the act after all is itself also a trial, a proving of the idea that lies back of it), is that it is retrievable, whereas overt consequences remain. They cannot be recalled. Moreover, many trials may mentally be made in a short time. The imagining of various plans carried out furnishes an opportunity for many impulses which at first are not in evidence at all, to get under way.

Many and varied direct sensings, appreciations, take place. When many tendencies are brought into play, there is clearly much greater probability that the capacity of self which is really needed and appropriate will be brought into action, and thus a truly reasonable happiness result. The tendency of deliberation to “polarize” the various lines of activity into opposed alternatives, into incompatible “either this or that,” is a way of forcing into clear recognition the importance of the issue (Ethics, 1932: 275).

Any actual experience of reflection upon conduct will show that every foreseen result at once stirs our present affections, our likes and dislikes, our desires and aversions. There is developed a running commentary, which stamps objects at once as good or evil. It is this direct sense of value, not the consciousness of general rules or ultimate goals, which finally determines the worth of the act (Ethics: 274)

3. Drama, not Calculation:

Deliberation is dramatic and active, not mathematical and impersonal (Ethics: 275).

Deliberation … no more resembles the casting-up of accounts of profit and loss, pleasures and pains, than an actor engaged in drama resembles a clerk recording debit and credit items in his ledger (Human Nature and Conduct, 199)

4. Characters in the Drama

[In ‘dramatic rehearsal’] our dominant interest is the manifestation and interaction of personalities … [as] in the drama where the colorful display of incidents is . . . a display of the outworking of character (E: 176).

[In dramatic rehearsal we] put ourselves in the place of others, to see things from the standpoint of their purposes and values (E: 270)

The running commentary of likes and dislikes … reveals to any man who is intelligent enough to note them and study their occasions his own character (HNC: 140).

We shall have to discover the personal factors that now influence us unconsciously (Middle Works: 113)

5. Thick Description

Variety of competing tendencies enlarges the world. It brings a diversity of considerations before the mind, and enables action to take place finally in view of an object generously conceived and delicately refined, composed by a long process of selections and combinations. In popular phrase, to be deliberate is to be slow, unhurried. It takes time to put objects in order (HNC: 137).

6. Sensitivity and Emotion

A keen eye and a quick ear are not in themselves guarantees of correct knowledge of physical objects. But they are conditions without with such knowledge cannot arise. … Unless there is a direct, mainly unreflective appreciation of persons and deeds the data for subsequent thought will be lacking or distorted (E: 268–269).

Emotional reactions form the chief materials of our knowledge or ourselves and of others (E: 269).

[Sensitivity] render[s] vivid the interests of others and urging us to give them the same weight as our own” (E: 270).

There must also be a delicate personal responsiveness — there must be an emotional reaction” (Moral Principles in Education: 288).

The conclusion is not that the emotional, passionate phase of action can be or should be eliminated in behalf of a bloodless reason. More “passions,” not fewer, is the answer. To check the influence of hate there must be sympathy, while to rationalize sympathy there are needed emotions of curiosity, caution, respect for the freedom of others — dispositions which evoke objects which balance those called up by sympathy, and prevent its degeneration into maudlin sentiment and meddling interference (HNC: 136).

7. Principles

Out of experiences [which have common features] general ideas develop. Through language, instruction, and tradition this gathering together of experiences of value into generalized points of view is extended . . . Through intercommunication the experience of [humanity] is to some extent pooled and crystallized in general ideas. These ideas constitute principles. We bring them with us to deliberation on particular situations (Ethics, 1932, 275–276).

Human history is long. There is a long record of past experimentation in conduct, and there are cumulative verifications which give many principles a well earned prestige (HNC: 239).

[But a “well earned prestige” is not certainty, not “The truth”] A moral principle, then, is not a command to act or forbear acting in a given way; it is a tool for analyzing a special situation, the right or wrong being determined by the situation in its entirety, and not by the rule as such” (E: 280).

We sometimes hear . . . that the [principle] of the Golden Rule would at once settle all . . . disputes and difficulties . . . Because I am fond of classical music it does not follow that I should thrust as much of it as possible upon my neighbors. But the “Golden Rule” does furnish us a point of view from which to consider acts; it suggests the necessity of considering how our acts affect the interests of others as well as our own (Ethics, 1932, 281–282).

Evolution of conceptions thus goes on simultaneously with determination of the facts; one possible meaning after another is held before the mind, considered in relation to the data” (How We Think: 124).

There is continual appraising of both data and ideas (HWT: 125).

No conception even if it is carefully and firmly established in the abstract can at first safely be more than a candidate for the office of interpreter. Only a greater success than that of its rivals in clarifying dark spots, untying hard knots, reconciling discrepancies, can elect it and prove it to be a valid idea in a given situation (HWT: 125).

We may recur to the case of the physician … in diagnosing a case of disease [he] deals with something individualized. He draws upon a store of general principles … but he does not attempt to reduce the case to an exact specimen of certain laws. Rather he uses general statements as aids to direct his observation of the particular case, so as to discover what it is like, they function as intellectual tools or instrumentalities (Quest for Certainty: 207; also Reconstruction in Philosophy: 168).

. . each generation . . . is under the responsibility of overhauling its° inherited stock of moral principles and reconsidering them in° relation to contemporary conditions and needs. . . . Recognition of their close and vital relationship to social forces will create and reenforce search for the principles which are truly relevant in our own day (Ethics, 1932, 283).

The choice is not between throwing away rules previously developed and sticking obstinately by them. The intelligent alternative is to revise, adapt, expand and alter them. The problem is one of continuous, vital readaptation” (HNC: 239–240).

8. Inquiry, Experiment, Discovery

We have to search, to experiment (HNC: 216).

See also mention of experiment under #1, #7, #10.

9. Creativity, Imagination

Nothing is more extraordinary than the delicacy, promptness, and ingenuity with which deliberation is capable of making eliminations and recombinations in projecting the course of a possible activity” (HNC: 194).

Quoting Shelly: “The great secret of morals is … a going out of our nature, and the identification of ourselves with the beautiful that exists in thought, action or person, not our own. A man to be greatly good must imagine intensely and comprehensively” (Art as Experience: 349)

(In the same spirit, Hilary Putnam, a prominent philosopher, today, writes: “Imagining ways of living, or particular aspects of ways of living, is tremendously important in moral [deliberation]” {Meaning and the Moral Sciences, 1984}).

10. Uncertainty. Adventure, and Risk

The poignancy of situations that evoke reflection lies in the fact that we really do not know the meaning of the tendencies that are pressing for action. We have to search, to experiment. … Conflict is acute (HNC: 216).

Ignoring the fact that truth can be bought only by the adventure of experiment,

dogmatism turns truth into an insurance company. Fixed ends upon one side, and fixed “principles” — that is authoritative rules — on the other, are props for a feeling of safety, the refuge of the timid and the means by which the bold prey upon the timid (HNC: 163).

Surrender of what is possessed, disowning of what supports one in secure ease, is involved in all inquiry and discovery; the latter implicate an individual still to make, with all the risks implied therein … unforeseeable result of an adventure. No one discovers a new world without forsaking an old one; and no one discovers a new world who exacts guarantees in advance for what it shall be (Experience and Nature: 245–246).