Abstract
Sociologists often ask why particular groups of people have the moral views that they do. I argue that sociology’s empirical research on morality relies, implicitly or explicitly, on unsophisticated and even obsolete ethical theories, and thus is based on inadequate conceptions of the ontology, epistemology, and semantics of morality. In this article I address the two main problems in the sociology of morality: (1) the problem of moral truth, and (2) the problem of value freedom. I identify two ideal–typical approaches. While the Weberian paradigm rejects the concept of moral truth, the Durkheimian paradigm accepts it. By contrast, I argue that sociology should be metaphysically agnostic, yet in practice it should proceed as though there were no moral truths. The Weberians claim that the sociology of morality can and should be value free; the Durkheimians claim that it cannot and it should not. My argument is that, while it is true that factual statements presuppose value judgments, it does not follow that sociologists are moral philosophers in disguise. Finally, I contend that in order for sociology to improve its understanding of morality, better conceptual, epistemological, and methodological foundations are needed.
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Notes
One can also give a quantitative indicator here: between 1995 and 1999, AJS and ASR published 161 articles that use the noun “morality” or the adjective “moral” (that is, about one third of all the articles they published in that 5-year period). To name but a few examples from other subfields, urban ethnographers have studied the “provincial morality of slum neighborhoods” (Suttles 1968), the “moral order of a suburb” (Baumgartner 1988), and the “moral life of the inner city” (Anderson 1999). Sociologists of crime and deviance have been interested in “moral panics,” “moral crusades,” and “moral entrepreneurs” (Becker 1963; Cohen 2002; Erikson 1966; Goode and Ben-Yehuda 1994; Gusfield 1963; Thompson 1998). One of the main insights of economic sociology is that moral values play an important role in the marketplace (see, e.g., Granovetter and Swedberg 1992; Guillén et al. 2002; Smelser and Swedberg 1994; Zelizer 1979, 1994). For its part, cultural sociology, as Wuthnow (2002:123) rightly notes, is particularly well-positioned to study “values, beliefs, moral constructs, and other normative issues.”
“The Weberian sociologist/paradigm” and “the Durkheimian sociologist/paradigm” are meant to be ideal-types, which none of the contemporary writers I cite perfectly instantiate.
This is, of course, one more incarnation of one of the oldest epistemological problems of the social sciences in general. However, this problem is significantly more acute and consequential in the case of investigations whose very objects are moral values (rather than, say, price elasticities or organizational dynamics).
Moral philosophers distinguish among normative ethics, applied or practical ethics, and metaethics. Normative ethicists develop substantive theories about how to tell right from wrong, what justice is, what moral principles should guide our conduct, and the like. Applied ethicists study practical problems such as abortion, corporate responsibility, intergenerational justice, the rights of non-human animals, or euthanasia (see LaFollette 2003). Metaethics (or second-order ethics) deals with the nature of morality, moral theories, and moral language. For example, it asks: Are there moral facts? Is there a single true morality? Are moral judgments genuine propositions?
Durkheim’s position on these two problems, unlike Weber’s, has been either misunderstood or neglected. Therefore, a discussion of his “science of morality” is needed in order to understand why one might call the Durkheimians “the Durkheimians.”
Throughout the article I sometimes use the term “moral belief” myself. However, I do not thereby intend to endorse a cognitivist ethical theory according to which moral judgments are genuine beliefs in the sense that “snow is white” is a genuine belief. I simply take advantage of the fact that if Jones tells you “stealing is wrong,” it is all right to say “Jones believes that stealing is wrong.” It is all right even if your noncognitivist ethical theory argues that what Jones in fact means is “boo to stealing!” or “I disapprove of stealing; do so as well.”
Like Hacking (1999), I draw this list of “socially constructed” things from a library catalog. As of March 2004, a search in Harvard’s Hollis catalog returns 59 books entitled The Social Construction of X, including, of course, Hacking’s own addition to the list: The Social Construction of What?
Different translators and commentators have rendered Durkheim’s French terms into English differently. George Simpson’s translation of The Division of Labor (Durkheim 1933) renders “science de la morale” as “science of ethics.” Simpson and also Traugott (Durkheim 1978) use both “ethics” and “morality” to translate “morale.” For his part, Hall (1987:10) notes that Durkheim sometimes uses phrases such as “physique des moeurs” or “physiology des moeurs,” and thus he decides to use “the phrase ‘sociology of morals’ to designate Durkheim’s science of moral facts.” The problem here is that Durkheim (1979b:92) himself suggests that “science ou physique des moeurs” is not as appropriate a name as “science de la morale” or “science des faits moraux.” All in all, I think “science of morality” is the most accurate rendition. “Science of ethics” seems to imply that the discipline deals with the ethical doctrines that philosophers design. “Science of morals” seems to imply that the discipline deals with mere customs. Although I generally rely on the English translations of Durkheim, I have systematically checked their accuracy against the French originals.
However, not all of the fieldworkers involved in the project could observe the lives of their subjects. In these cases, then, there seems to be no way to determine if there is a gap between language and life. Furthermore, the critic may want to press the objection hinted at above. In this view, “the richness of Jones’ commitments” or “how Jones’ moral life actually is” cannot be grasped from the outside, without the mediation of her accounts and therefore the language she uses.
Selznick’s complete sentence reads: “Like [É]mile Durkheim, I believe sociology is preeminently a ‘moral science’.” Selznick interprets Durkheim as a “moral realist” (1992:141–146), but it is not entirely clear what he means by “realism” here. For instance, Selznick contrasts Durkheim’s “moral realism” with Marx’s “prophetic idealism.” In any case, Selznick (1992:141) quotes approvingly the argument Durkheim presents in The Rules to the effect that science should talk about good and evil. I think it is on these grounds that he attributes to Durkheim the claim that sociology is preeminently a moral science. As discussed above, this is not false but should be qualified. What is truly Durkheimian in this section of Selznick’s argument is the claim that sociology can help us discover the right values.
I thank a Theory and Society reviewer for bringing up and discussing this point.
Drawing on Boyd (1988), Brink (1984, 1989), and Sayre-McCord (1988), I conceptualize moral truth as correspondence to moral facts (on moral truth, see also Hooker 1996). I recognize that it is a very contentious question what it is for a statement to be capable of truth, and that the correspondence theory of truth has many problems of its own. Should the consensus reached under ideal speech conditions count as truth? Does truth “happen” to an idea, as William James (1975) famously argued? Nonetheless, for my present purposes these quandaries can be bypassed.
For a sample of cogent metaethical arguments that are at odds with one another, see: Dworkin (1996); Foot (1978, 2002); Hare (1952); Harman (1977); Harman and Thomson (1996); McDowell (1985); Mackie (1977); Moody-Adams (1997); Sturgeon (1988); Wiggins (1998); Williams (1985); and Wong (1984). One could make the disagreement even more dramatic by considering non-analytic moral philosophy as well.
In this same category fall the assumptions that physicist make (most famously to non-physicists, the frictionless plane), and the regression assumptions.
Type I errors consist in rejecting the null hypothesis when it is in fact true. In other words, one claims that there is a difference when in fact there is not. Type II errors consist in accepting or failing to reject the null hypothesis when in fact it is false (the alternative hypothesis is true). In other words, one claims that x and y are not different when in fact they are.
My argument does not depend, of course, on which one of the two beliefs is considered to be objectively true.
I am arguing that the sociology of morality ought not to talk about what ought to be the case. Thus, one might point out that I myself am deriving “ought” from “is.” However, my “ought” is not categorical but conditional. I am not arguing that sociology ought to do x simpliciter, but that it ought to do x if it wants y. For an influential article that claims to derive “ought” (that is, a categorical “ought”) from “is,” see Searle (1964).
In more technical terms, this objection focuses on “neutrality” rather than “impartiality” (Lacey 1999). Impartiality denies that scientists’ acceptance and rejection of theories is necessarily influenced by their moral values. Neutrality claims that scientific theories do not logically entail any value judgments.
This is not an uncontroversial argument. For instance, Philippa Foot (2002:191) argues that “there is some content restriction on what can intelligibly be said to be a system of morality.” Thus, she opposes those theories that “[allow] the possibility even of bizarre so-called ‘moral judgments’ about the wrongness of running around trees right-handed or looking at hedgehogs in the light of the moon” (2002:191).
I chose to focus on the Weberian and Durkheimian paradigms because they provide the framework for most contemporary sociology of morality. The former represents the epistemological/methodological orthodoxy, and the latter is now its main challenger. This is not a judgment about the relative worth of these four paradigms, but about their relative ascendancy at the present time. I thank a Theory and Society reviewer for bringing to my attention this limitation in the scope of this article.
These stances are at the basis of the demarcation of “critical” from “traditional” theory in Horkheimer’s programmatic essays, and of the attacks on positivism in the Positivismusstreit of the 1960s (Adorno et al. 1976; Habermas 1988; Horkheimer 1972, 1993). Third-generation critical theorists, such as Honneth, still aim at a “social theory with normative content” (1995:1). Thus, his theory of recognition is both an empirical and a normative one (see, e.g., 1995:160–170). Honneth’s relevance for the sociology of morality also lies in his substantive interest in the moral dimension of social life–e.g., the “societal significance of moral feelings” or the “moral grammar of social struggles” (1995:166).
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Acknowledgments
I want to thank Nicki Beisel, Charles Camic, Alan Czaplicki, Samuel Fleischacker, Andreas Glaeser, Carol Heimer, Elif Kale-Lostuvali, Michèle Lamont, Steven Lukes, Jeff Manza, Jonathan Mathys, Gianfranco Poggi, Michael Sauder, Laura Stark, Arthur Stinchcombe, Charles Taylor, Jessica Thurk, Stephen Vaisey, Christopher Winship, Alan Wolfe, and the Editors and reviewers of Theory and Society for comments and suggestions. I have developed my ideas on the sociology of morality in dialogue with Carol Heimer, whose research on morality is an exemplar of depth, insight, and rigor. Philosophers Samuel Fleischacker, Jonathan Mathys, and Charles Taylor enriched my understanding of the ethics literature. Last but not least, I am very thankful to Prof. Michael E. Sauder for his constant feedback and advice on this article.
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Abend, G. Two main problems in the sociology of morality. Theor Soc 37, 87–125 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11186-007-9044-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11186-007-9044-y