 Hook’s activist involvement in many of the major moral issues that emerged in the political debates of the 1930s was connected to a major theoretical issue of ethical theory: the possibility of the determination and the justification of objective, normative statements. In ethical theory, Hook aimed to provide a clear and consistent formulation of Deweyan ethical naturalism. In his John Dewey: An Intellectual Portrait of 1939, Hook began his discussion by quoting in full Dewey’s view about the centrality of ethics for philosophy. Dewey wrote, “the central problem of philosophy is the relation that exists between the beliefs about the nature of things due to natural science to beliefs about values – using that word to designate whatever is taken to have rightful authority in the direction of conduct.” Dewey continued: “the problem of restoring integration and co-operation between man’s beliefs about the world in which he lives and his beliefs about the values and purposes that should direct his conduct is the deepest problem of modern life” (Hook, John Dewey: An Intellectual Portrait, 1939, 128).