 Dewey isn’t a sceptic about inherited moral theory. Rather, he sees it as as a repertoire of conceptual resources and tools that we have for dealing with the problems of value judgement in a world of plural and changing values. In Ethics, Dewey and James H. Tufts offer an interpretation of different canonical value theories, teleology, deontology and virtue ethics as providing contrasting methodological orientations for identifying, describing and solving problems. Instead of asking which of these approaches best captures “our intuitions” and so should be used as an unvarying standard to guide decision-making in concrete situations, Dewey argues that no one approach constitutes a theoretically adequate guide to how to act in particular situations. Instead, these provide standpoints from which agents can identify and analyze problems, sift important from unimportant considerations, and appraise our raw preferences and alternative plans of action. Conflict among these approaches cannot be resolved in theory, only in practice, if at all, where an agent must make “the best adjustment he can among forces which are genuinely disparate” (“Three Independent Factors in Morals”, MW5, 288). This rejection of fixed moral standard should also not be confused with ethical “neutrality” on Dewey’s part, as we’ll see when we turn to his political theory.  