Abstract
What legal, social and cultural norms are being destroyed, preserved, or generated anew in the current, high-speed dynamics of global social order? What normative processes are at work in the structural and cultural landscape of this new world? In other words, how ‘unbound’ is social morphogenesis going to be from normativity, its prompts and restraints? This chapter revolves around these crucial questions. More precisely, it examines both the implications of intensified social morphogenesis for social normativity and, conversely, the role played by normativity in social morphogenesis. The former deals with how morphogenesis is affecting normativity, causing both its disruption (de-normativization, anomie) and regeneration. The latter aspect addresses the ways in which social morphogenesis is being regulated (or not) in the current global predicament. In Sect. 5.1, the general approach is clarified. In Sect. 5.2 an outline of the main challenges and the related responses, characterizing the relationship between the morphogenic society and the normative sphere, is developed. I subsequently discuss two issues which are bound to be of crucial importance to the whole normative and symbolical landscape of the emerging societal formation. In Sect. 5.3, the argument is focussed upon the specific problems concerning personal ontology, while Sect. 5.4 deals with emergent norm-creating processes which tend to produce innovative forms of universalism in the global arena.
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Notes
- 1.
This formulation, which links a morphogenetic and relational approach, is my own responsibility. I tried to clarify its rationale in Maccarini (2013).
- 2.
For a discussion of some relevant changes see Archer (2014: 10–11).
- 3.
See Alexander (2012), Porpora et al. (2013) for interesting arguments and examples on each side of this distinction in the political domain. Another impressive example concerns pedophilia—one of the last moral taboos in the secular West that is currently becoming a contested phenomenon. Here we witness a growing quest for transparency and media driven scandals, expressing a more refined moral sensitivity, paralleled by a tendency to downgrade such an inclination from ‘illness’ to ‘disorder’, and finally to mere ‘orientation’—which clearly involves a consistent march towards its moral (and in the end, legal) neutralization. This evolution is apparent in the political activity of the related protest groups, and can be traced through the various editions of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder, issued by the American Psychiatric Association. For the most recent edition CHECK see American Psychiatric Association (2013).
- 4.
The argument for diffusion has been effectively presented by Archer (2015). As regards cyber-wars, the recent actions of the hacker group called the ‘Guardians of Peace’ (sic), which threatened Sony Inc. into cancelling the movie ‘The Interview’, is a good case in point, with a still unknown plot that possibly involves State and non-State actors and groups.
- 5.
Among other things, this means stability is not necessarily the offspring of ‘defensive’ struggles.
- 6.
- 7.
As regards this concept, Archer refers to Pierpaolo Donati’s work. See for example Donati and Solci (2011).
- 8.
The increasingly confrontational attitude of non-Western civilizations and movements against the basic premises of Western modernity is a good illustration of this point. Secularization should also come into the picture as a relevant component. The full consideration of all these issues is obviously far beyond the scope of this essay. Points (i) and (ii) in the text are aptly examined by Archer (2012, 2014, 2015), and constitute the core of what is meant by a ‘reflexive’ and ‘morphogenic’ turn of society.
- 9.
Throughout the present chapter, this term (or its equivalent, ‘form of rationality’) refers to the different forms of argument, derived from different cognitive as well as normative presuppositions that social actors exhibit in connection with their diverse interests and identities.
- 10.
- 11.
The application of the term “autoimmune syndrome” to the dynamics of the legal system—in the way I use it here—must be traced to Prandini (2012 passim). The meaning this author attributes to the formula is here summarized at point (i) below. In point (ii) I extend it beyond that original statement.
- 12.
The ineffectiveness of control is often used to justify legislative change, even in the ‘hard cases’ of morally contested issues such as abortion, euthanasia, etc. Appeal to this ‘principle’ is quite common, e.g. when it is deemed ‘irrational’ or even ‘unfair’ to forbid behaviour that is allowed elsewhere.
- 13.
Without this clarification, traffic lights would fall into this category—which would be absurd.
- 14.
I cannot follow this line of thought in its far-reaching implications. The very crisis of late modern society has been read as an outcome of such a problem. For this thesis see Donati (1997).
- 15.
More precisely, the UEPE (office for external implementation of criminal law). I thank Cristina Selmi, Ph.D., for discussing this case with me and providing useful first-hand information.
- 16.
As regards the boundaries between functional systems and their environments as important sources of new global normativity, I share this insight with Prandini (2012: 64). My own version of it has a wider scope, including (i) the ontological dimension, (ii) the emphasis on the type of obligation, and (iii) the complex nature of the differentiation of global society (see below).
- 17.
I don’t even try to provide references for the concept of functional differentiation. Its clearest and most systematic statement to me remains that offered by Luhmann (1997).
- 18.
As in the case of nation-states surviving within the functionally differentiated system of politics. For this interpretation see Luhmann (1997: 806–812).
- 19.
This point brings up a complex issue, which I cannot follow up here. A different way to put it would be that nation-states only display sufficient vitality when they assume the dimension of sub-continental units—such as the USA or China—while their ‘classical’ modern format becomes hopelessly inadequate—as is the case with old European states.
- 20.
Simply put, the idea of indisposability implies the normative request to treat the natural constitution of human beings as indisposable (i.e. unavailable for manipulation), and is directed against the attitude of having it at one’s disposal, as it happens in case parts of the human body could be patented and become available for industrial production or commercial exchange. There is obviously an extended literature on this subject. See at least Lohmann (2014: 167 ss.). See also Joas (2008: 125–132, 2013).
- 21.
- 22.
Fuchs and Göbel (1994: 9, 14).
- 23.
Rodotà (2012: 184) (my translation).
- 24.
An impressive (irritating) demonstration of this came some time ago from one of the most distinguished representatives of Islamist terrorism. His fierce accusation to the West was not that it has de-sacralized everything. He did not go with the Weberian motif of disenchantment, which would supposedly scandalize a ‘fundamentalist’ person. On the contrary, his point was that Western societies were sanctifying different—and allegedly wrong—things and causes. The mistake would be one of ‘misplaced sacredness’. This, in his opinion, is the big divide between the two civilizations. The example comes from a video message issued by Al Zawahiri, broadcast by Al Jazeera in March, 2006. In that message he said the decline of the ‘false’ and ‘dying’ Western civilization depends on its making ‘zionism, the Holocaust, and sexual perversity’ its sacred objects. Thus, the notorious ‘clash of civilizations’ would amount to the confrontation between two ideas of the sacred, not between theocracy and secularism.
- 25.
The formula bears the obvious weight of a paradox. On the posthuman, the literature is now so extended that I give up quotations. I’ll refer to a few important authors in the text below.
- 26.
About the relevance of untouchability, as related to other companion concepts like dignity, see Lohmann and other contributions in Albers et al. (2014).
- 27.
Luhmann (1993: 484, 515 ss).
- 28.
Ibidem, pp. 191–192; 233 ss.; 575.
- 29.
I take the term ‘anthropotechnics’ from Sloterdijk (2013). Using it in the present context, I change—or better, restrict—its meaning to technologically assisted manipulations of the human person.
- 30.
This problem has triggered a renewed interest within sociology (not just history) for concepts such as the ‘Axial Age’ (Bellah and Joas 2012). For an interesting discussion of a strictly related topic see also Donati (2010). The issue is obviously far beyond the scope of this paper, but it would represent a way to ‘re-code’ the whole argument I am presenting here.
- 31.
By this formulation I indicate that transcendence and ‘exterior’ are also strictly connected with relationality.
- 32.
I use the formula ‘social norms’ here in its most general meaning, to include law and other norms. The reason is that the problem does not lie in law alone, but in the whole gamut of normative symbols shared at the socio-cultural level, playing a regulative and constitutive role for behaviour.
- 33.
European Court of Justice (2014).
- 34.
ISCO stands for ‘International Stem Cell Corporation’—a publicly traded biotechnology company based in California.
- 35.
The strategy of ‘social closure’ is bound to fail in the long run, should it try to create ‘safe havens’ where such experiments cannot enter. This goes for Western societies. The often confrontational attitude other civilizations may have as regards some of the behaviour in question is far from irrelevant, but its full consideration is beyond the scope of this chapter. The notion of ‘cross-checked court rulings’ refers to the new forms of network universalism that lean on technical deliberative or adjudicating bodies, typically courts and international arbitration boards. These courts and boards perform sort of a legal bricolage, deciding what laws are applicable and combining them so as to create a relatively consistent corpus of transnational law. The validity of a norm would then be left to the cross-check and cross-validation between these actors, constituting a ‘global community of courts’ through continuous mutual observation and adaptation (Burke-White 2002; Slaugther 2003; Teubner 2000, 2002a, b).
- 36.
- 37.
The author (Ibid., p. 96) then goes on to characterize such an anthropology as one centred on autonomous, rational, reflexive individuals, dedicated to the pursuit of their life plans. For what truth there is in this image, it should be noted that all different kinds of reflexivity should not be put under the same heading of neo-liberalism, and that ‘life plans’ do not amount to utility functions.
- 38.
For example, the documented abuse of drugs like Ritalin on the part of students in order to quicken their studying time and enhance their intellectual performance clearly invites this kind of interpretation, keeping the logics of acceleration and of HET together in one concrete action. With this I do not mean to underestimate the huge complexity of the matter. This is probably not the only connection entailed. I simply intend to establish that such a link is a legitimate one, i.e. to demonstrate that it exists. No claim about its exclusive relevance is involved.
- 39.
Insofar as individual self-determination stands out as the (only) guiding value, it will be difficult to come up with a culture that can effectively support human dignity and human rights in the face of the current, ‘unbound’ changes and powers. To me, this is also the permanent ‘flaw in the code’ of even serious attempts, like that by Rodotà (2012).
- 40.
Among other things, future generations do not suffer, and never will—particularly if they never come into existence. And some states of the human (e.g. some early phases of fetal life) can hardly be associated with a significant capacity to suffer. But then again, what is the capacity to suffer that we would regard as ‘significant’?
- 41.
To be ideally extended to the whole world society.
- 42.
- 43.
A clarification is in order here. I am emphatically not saying that reason is an exhausted resource or is no more available in the cultural system(s) of global society. I am just making the empirical observation that it is currently very hard to see it shared at the socio-cultural level.
- 44.
- 45.
Standard setting is one way to respond. However, the logic of standardization processes is rather different from that of networking, as I will try to clarify below.
- 46.
This is exactly what is happening with some of the emerging rights concerning the human biological sphere I mentioned above (Sect. 5.2). Diffused communication crystallizes around particular events, e.g. the media produce a scandal, and the scandal produces new law. Legitimation and validity emerges from this circularity.
- 47.
The example of the European court of justice illustrated in section 2.2 is a case in point.
- 48.
For example, Teubner (2002b) usefully discusses three different configurations he calls co-opetition, unitas multiplex, and public/private networks. There is no reason to regard these as exhaustive of the protean ability of a social network to take different shapes and to generate related properties.
- 49.
This pluralistic network ontology reminds of the ‘scale of emergence’ mentioned in this volume, Chap. 4.
- 50.
See also the chapter about the UN Global Compact (Mwangi et al. 2013), which presents a case of UN-sanctioned soft law for human rights and environmental protection, which mobilizes a network including corporations, NGOs, professional associations, and more.
- 51.
- 52.
This point is sometimes couched in the language of ‘skills’. One interesting line of inquiry would be to connect the macro-sociological framework of the MS with the emergent research agenda revolving around the ‘social and emotional skills’ (OECD 2015), or ‘character’ (Nucci, Narvàez and Krettenhauer 2014). Here again the problem intersects the argument presented in chapter 8 of this book about the self, character, and reflexivity.
- 53.
Education and research on a global scale make a good example. Their freedom depends on de-politicization and de-bureaucratization, on the development of forms of non-economic competition, and on the pluralization of research funding sources. But as all who work within such system know too well, standardization and bureaucratization are currently becoming overwhelming. The balance between formal and informal is at risk.
- 54.
Models of decision making in the domain of health systems are a good example in this sense. Within a vast literature see for example Daniels (2008), Daniels and Sabin (2008). Their model is based on what they call ‘accountability for reasonableness’, and is prima facie compatible with my present argument.
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Maccarini, A.M. (2019). The Logic of Opportunity and Its Normative (Dis)contents. In: Deep Change and Emergent Structures in Global Society. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-13624-6_5
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