  Against Dewey’s instrumental theory of value judgments, one might object that sometimes we appraise valuings as intrinsically good or bad. We might judge that prizing another’s suffering is despicable, apart from its consequences. Dewey rejected the sharp distinction between character and action, motive and consequence, that this picture presupposes. A character trait is a tendency to pursue certain ends, and so must be appraised in terms of its typical (intended) results. Thus, we condemn schadenfreude primarily because it leads to cruelty. At the same time, conduct has among its consequences a tendency to reinforce the character traits that caused them, or to consolidate into a character trait its direction of impulse. Conduct constitutes the moral self. So, we properly condemn a single manifestation of schadenfreude — say, laughing at suffering caused by a natural disaster — even if it, in itself, did nothing to increase anyone’s suffering. This is the truth that moralities of intention grasp, which narrowly consequentialist theories do not (E 173–5, 286–9).