Making Morals: Standard-Setting in Organizations

Abstract

There’s a whole moralistic tone to the room. I mean, these are moral censors. These are people who are making judgments about other people’s morality. There aren’t that many places in the United States where you get that.

(interview, This Film Is Not Yet Rated)

In the above statement, an attorney comments on the institutionalized review process by which the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) determines film ratings for the American public—an activity that he sees as antithetical to the norms of a pluralistic society. However, what is perhaps most striking about this assertion, from a sociological perspective, is its inaccuracy. We are constantly experiencing the effects of others’ valuations of what is right/wrong, good/bad as a condition of our participation in social institutions. Human actors make sense of their lives by explaining what is important to them and where they stand on questions about “what is good, or valuable, or what ought to be done, or what [they] endorse or oppose” (Taylor 1989:27). Likewise, organizations also take stances in order to position themselves in “moral space” (Taylor 1989:28). This process involves making distinctions, hierarchies, and boundaries that rely on assumptions about right and wrong, and which (either implicitly or explicitly) “judge” other people’s morality (Sayer 2005; Lamont 1992, 2002; Alexander 2006).