John Dewey, The Essential
Dewey, Volume 2: Ethics, Logic, Psychology, edited by Larry A. Hickman
& Thomas M. Alexander (Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana U.
Press, 1998) (From "Moral Judgment and Knowledge": "There is a difference which must be noted between valuation as judgment (which involved thought in placing the thing judged in its relations and bearings) and valuing as a direct emotional and practical act. There is difference between esteem and estimation, between prizing and appraising. To esteem is to prize, hold dear, admire, approve; to estimate is to measure in intellectual fashion. One is direct, spontaneous; the other is reflex, reflective. We esteem before we estimate, and estimation comes in to consider whether and to what extent something is worthy of esteem. Is the object one which we should admire? Should we really prize it? Does it have the qualities which justify our holding it dear? All growth in maturity is attended with this change from a spontaneous to a reflective and critical attitude. First, our affections go out to something in attraction or repulsion; we like and dislike, Then experience raises the question whether the object in question is what our esteem or disesteem took it to be, whether it is such as to justify out reaction to it." Id. at 329. I would suggest we seriously consider (that is, reflect upon) whether we are living at a time of a chronic deficiency in the practice of questioning whether the things and people we admire (or, on the flip side, despise) should be.).
