Abstract: In this chapter, Taye explores Dewey’s pragmatist ethics in Human Nature and Conduct (1922) showing how it assists in addressing daunting challenges of healthcare allocation in sub-Saharan Africa. Given resource scarcity, economic dependency, and externally imposed policies in sub-Saharan nations, Dewey’s approach provides a context-sensitive, deliberative, and participatory model for decision-making. Traditional bioethical models, such as principlism, are often criticized for their Western-centric assumptions and rigid deductive logic. Pragmatism, by contrast, emphasizes empirical inquiry, interdisciplinarity, and social engagement. Dewey’s ethics reject fixed principles, favoring adaptive problem-solving that responds to local contexts. Sub-Saharan Africa’s healthcare systems struggle under colonial legacies and international interventions, with policies imposed top-down. Global allocation models, including cost-effectiveness metrics and donor-driven frameworks, often fail to align with local needs. A more suitable approach must incorporate community participation and indigenous health perspectives. Dewey’s alternative emphasizes public deliberation, ensuring stakeholder engagement at all levels. Education plays a foundational role in fostering collective problem-solving and rebuilding institutions. Rather than relying on externally imposed ethical frameworks, African healthcare systems must develop their own allocation models through participatory governance. Taye concludes that a Deweyan pragmatist approach offers a promising path toward ethical and effective healthcare distribution in the region.

This chapter explores the genetic and cellular foundations of biopsychology, focusing on the diversity that exists at the molecular and cellular levels within the brain. It explains the key processes of gene expression, including DNA transcription and translation, emphasizing how variation in these processes contributes to neuronal diversity. Moreover, this chapter provides a high-level overview of advanced techniques, such as transcriptomics, describing how these techniques are informing the process of classifying neuron types. The chapter also explores cellular anatomy by analyzing the wide range of neuronal shapes and the complexity of their connections. This foundation sets the stage for future discussions of neurotechnologies, for which an understanding of genetic constructs will enable students to better grasp the capabilities of tools like optogenetics and calcium imaging.

In this chapter the authors provide critical analysis of the child welfare system as the basis for cultivating the necessary reflection and action among supervisors, leaders, and practitioners to co-create truly anti-oppressive approaches to supervision and leadership. Utilizing a Black Critical Race Theory/BlackCrit lens (applying the principles of Critical Race Theory exclusively to the unique and significantly marginalized experiences of Black people) the authors interrogate the oppressive practices and motivations of historic and modern child welfare systems across the United States that are disproportionately harmful to Black children and families. Motivated to foster hope and facilitate systems change, the authors utilize case studies to support skills development in anti-oppressive supervision and leadership, while re-imagining the potential for an anti-racist child empowerment and support system for Black children and families. Readers are invited to embrace tools and skills that digress from strategies informed by white supremacy and social control. Ultimately, strategies presented in the chapter lay a foundation for rebuilding and reimagining supportive processes that preserve families and children.

Abstract: In this chapter, Colapietro discusses Dewey’s critique of Marxism and Freudian psychoanalysis in Human Nature and Conduct (1922). Rejecting Freud’s instinct theory, Dewey argues that impulses are flexible and shaped by experience rather than fixed drives. Yet, as Colapietro shows, Dewey’s account of impulse transformation – through discharge, suppression, or sublimation – parallels Freud’s concept of drive vicissitudes, despite avoiding Freud’s focus on repression and the unconscious. Dewey refutes the idea that fear, aggression, and love are innate instincts, instead viewing impulses as evolving within complex social contexts. His anti-elementalist stance rejects reductionist psychology, replacing it with a dynamic account of personality formation influenced by culture and environment. The chapter illustrates how Dewey’s theory of impulse modification offers a socially embedded alternative to instinct theory. Colapietro underscores that, for Dewey, moral and intellectual growth depends not on suppressing impulses but rather on intelligently redirecting them within dynamic social environments.

Abstract: In this chapter, Saito examines what the contemporary significance of Deweyan growth can be, if indeed it continues to have significance. In Human Nature and Conduct (1922), John Dewey elaborates his apparently paradoxical idea that growth means growing, “continued growth.” Today, the word “growth” has become something of a fad, in a somewhat perverse way. In the boom of what in Japan is known as Jiko-Keihatsu (whose literal translation is self-enlightenment, self-development, or self-improvement) people aspire to more growth and are encouraged to think that growth is to be achieved by brushing up their knowledge and skills. This chapter explores the significance of Dewey’s perfectionist idea of growth in the age of self-enlightenment and attempts to reclaim this idea of growth in terms of philosophy as a way of life. By doing so, the chapter elucidates the practical nature of pragmatism, exploring a third way, beyond neoliberal conceptions of utility and the potentially reactionary turn into self-cultivation in traditional liberal arts education. The chapter concludes by considering the contemporary significance of Deweyan growth lies in the fact that it opens up a way beyond the self, toward an idea of growth based not upon fear and anxiety but upon trust.

Abstract: In this chapter, Braun explains John Dewey’s account in Human Nature and Conduct (1922) of character as a dynamic process of growth and readjustment rather than a fixed set of traits. For Dewey, character results from the interpenetration of habits. Dewey defines good conduct as the capacity to continually adapt one’s habits to changing circumstances, integrating intelligence, emotion, and action. Dewey rejects static virtues, framing them instead as working adaptations. Good character emerges through flexible coordination of habits, fostering responsiveness to new moral challenges. Dewey’s Burglar Example illustrates this idea, showing the contrast between the rigid, specialized habits of criminals and the rich, adaptive habits shaped by democratic engagement. Drawing comparisons with Aristotle’s Unity of the Virtues and Humboldt’s Bildung, Braun highlights Dewey’s distinct contribution – his experimental approach to character formation. Rather than inheriting or imposing virtues, Dewey sees self-creation as an ongoing, improvisational process. Braun concludes that Dewey’s ethical vision challenges rigid moral frameworks, advocating for adaptability, openness, and moral experimentation as essential to ethical growth in an ever-changing social world.

Abstract: In this chapter, Henning applies John Dewey’s pragmatist ethics to sexual conduct, arguing for a sexual ethic rooted in education, experimentation, and imagination rather than rigid prohibitions. Henning argues that Dewey’s Human Nature and Conduct (1922) provides a framework for understanding sex as an experience that intertwines nature and culture, habit and impulse, and personal and social meaning. Henning shows how Dewey’s concept of habit formation highlights how sexual norms are transmitted culturally, often through prohibition, secrecy, and shame. This repression leads to miseducation, with adolescents turning to internet pornography for sexual knowledge, reinforcing narrow and misleading sexual scripts. A Deweyan approach would foster openness, aesthetic awareness, and moral imagination, allowing individuals to explore sexuality as part of a dynamic and humane ethical life. Dewey’s ethics emphasizes growth through deliberation and imaginative play. Sexual education should recognize the complexity of desire, vulnerability, and intimacy. Henning concludes that rather than treating sexuality as a taboo, sex education should provide young people with the tools to engage responsibly and meaningfully with their evolving impulses.

Abstract: In this chapter, Lekan explores John Dewey’s argument against the necessity of practice-independent moral foundations in Human Nature and Conduct (1922). Lekan describes how Dewey challenges the claim that morality requires an external, nonempirical grounding to ensure motivation and objectivity. Instead, he develops a naturalistic and social account of human nature, arguing that moral norms arise from customs, which evolve through reflective intelligence and social interactions. Dewey critiques traditional moral theories for fostering authoritarianism and dogmatism, which emphasize obedience and blame rather than inquiry and adaptation. Lekan shows that Dewey’s fifth wheel argument asserts that grounding assumptions are unnecessary because moral deliberation already functions within socially embedded practices. He rejects the egoist’s skeptical challenge – “Why be moral?” – as misguided, emphasizing that moral inquiry is continuous with social life. Lekan argues that by replacing rigid moral principles with experimental problem-solving, Dewey presents ethics as an evolving, context-sensitive practice. His approach shifts the focus from static ideals to dynamic moral intelligence, advocating for a democratic, inquiry-based moral life where values and habits are continually revised in response to changing conditions.