The main innovation of The Public and Its Problems is to present a vision of democracy not merely as a tool of political legitimacy or as a way to organize political systems, but as a way of life and an ethos. By affirming that democracies ought to cultivate certain virtues and habits in the citizenry, Dewey seems to be proposing a more illiberal conception of democracy than that of classical liberal theorists – in that Dewey's conception of democracy blurs the public-private distinction by requiring the development of democratic habits. As Melvin L. Rogers puts it, "Dewey is critical of the extent to which classical liberalism, with its atomistic psychology, narrow understanding of individuality, and limited role for the state, undermines the communal dimension of democracy."[41] Siding with the likes of L. T. Hobhouse and W. E. B. Du Bois, Dewey stands ready to combat economic deprivations and political exclusions by restricting individual autonomy. In this sense, Dewey belongs to what L. T. Hobhouse calls "new liberalism." Where classical liberals separate the individual sphere of action from the public sphere at large, new liberals try to find the right balance between the two. Like Hobhouse, Dewey retains the classical liberal aspiration to emancipate individuals and free their potential. Unlike most classical liberals, however, Dewey does not bracket the question of the good life to build political institutions. He takes the flourishing of life to require certain pre-conditions, and seeks to use the state to ensure that these pre-conditions are met. The Public and Its Problems follows this approach by defending the cultivation of a participatory, democratic ethos in all spheres of life.
Whether Dewey's communitarian bent makes his conception of democracy incompatible with liberalism is a matter of scholarly debate. On the one hand, Dewey belongs to a pluralist tradition that views the individual as the intersecting fusion of diverse social groups and overlapping associations – including the state itself. In this sense, Dewey's liberalism follows the likes of Arthur Bentley, Ernest Barker and Mary Parker Follett.[42] On the other hand, by arguing that proper democracy requires the cultivation of certain personal qualities in all spheres of life, Dewey departs from the kind of liberal neutrality that some associate with John Rawls.[43] Robert B. Talisse, for instance, argues that Dewey's conception of democracy as a way of life is incompatible with genuine pluralism.[44] Talisse claims that Dewey's conception of democracy imposes a specific vision of good onto others, thereby relinquishing the pluralist aspirations of liberalism. Joshua Forstenzer has replied to Talisse's objection by holding that Deweyan democracy relies upon only a "thin" definition of the good – as opposed to a robust, comprehensive doctrine.[45] For Forstenzer, no political system can ever be neutral vis-à-vis substantive definitions of the good; on his view, Deweyan democracy may invite the cultivation of certain democratic virtues, but it remains sufficiently broad for people of diverse backgrounds, faiths, and cultural traditions to live according to their own principles — to a large extent at least. Similarly, Shane J. Ralston argues that Deweyan democracy and pluralism are entirely compatible.[46] More specifically, Ralston claims that Dewey offers a set of pluralist procedures that allow democracy as a way of life to include a robust respect of value-diversity, illustrating her argument with a real-life case studies.[47]
More broadly, The Public and Its Problems has been put in dialogue with a variety of historical and contemporary political theorists. In his pluralist critique of Dewey, Talisse compares Dewey's communitarian bent with Michael Sandel's civic republicanism, later mobilising Rawls and Isaiah Berlin to argue against both. Both Melvin L. Rogers and Shane J. Ralston claim that the second and third chapters of The Public and Its Problems flirt with both deliberative and participatory conceptions of democracy.[48] For Rogers, Dewey ties the very idea of representation to deliberation among the citizenry, a connection that contemporary theorists of deliberation à la Hélène Landemore also defend.[49] Lastly, Naoko Saito has put Dewey in dialogue with Henry David Thoreau and Stanley Cavell to compare their competing conceptions of democracy as a way of life.[50]
