Abstract
In the period 1889–1930, Jane Addams, working as a member of sociology’s classic generation, created a sociology that places ethics at the center of its analysis of society and social life—as a major explanatory variable in social theory, a policy objective for applied sociology, and an important emphasis in the practice of public sociology (as presented to a public that regularly voted her among “the most admired Americans”—Davis 1973; Levine 1971; Linn 1935; Misztal 2007). A study of Addams’s thought and career presents an almost singular opportunity to examine a major sociologist grappling with an issue confronting the new field of altruism, morality, and social solidarity: the need to justify the claim that moral action is a central force in social life. Establishing that claim is for this new field as fundamental as Marx’s assertion of the material basis of social life or Durkheim’s demonstration of the reality of social facts. This chapter describes the sociological reasoning that leads Addams to grant ethics fundamental explanatory power.
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© 2014 Vincent Jeffries
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Lengermann, P., Niebrugge, G. (2014). The Explanatory Power of Ethics: The Sociology of Jane Addams. In: Jeffries, V. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Altruism, Morality, and Social Solidarity. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137391865_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137391865_5
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