A passion for respect: On understanding the role of human needs and morality

In the present paper, we stress the importance of the concept respect in a wide variety of social settings and provide a working definition of this concept by emphasizing how respect relates to the act of communicating full recognition to other people on the dimensions of belongingness and morality. Subsequently, in two separate parts, we discuss why respect is so desired and valued. The first part looks at respect as a means to fulfil important human social concerns (“respect as a means to an end”). The second part looks at the potential moral underpinnings of respect and thus interprets “respect as an end in itself.” Finally, it is suggested that both reasons to value respect explain respect effects as a function of the working selfconcept that is salient (i.e., pragmatic versus idealistic self). Laetitia B. Mulder is Assistant Professor of Social Psychology at Tilburg University. Her research interests are social decision making, sanctions and rewards, moral norms, compliance, and norm internalization.     

The storyscapes of teenage pregnancy. On morality,embodiment, and narrative agency

Young women tell different stories about teenage pregnancies. Their stories are embedded in the storyscape of their environment, which offers a limited set of narratives. Normative discourses influence the stories young women tell about their pregnancies. Social norms and stigma play an important role in the construction of the meaning of teenage pregnancies. However, the embodiment of being pregnant constitutes meaning as well. This paper draws on findings from a qualitative study conducted in 2015 among 46 young Dutch women who got pregnant before their 20th birthday. Our study explores how young women navigate the moral arena when they are confronted with a teenage pregnancy and which role the embodiment of pregnancy plays in the construction of social meanings. The concept of storyscapes visualises how young women are constrained by their embeddedness in multiple storyscapes, defined by different and often contrasting audiences. Nevertheless, our study indicates that the momentum of pregnancy can offer agentic possibilities to take up another position towards their social environment and develop narrative agency.     

Theorizing morality in context

How does context condition morality? This is one of the core questions of the sociology of morality and also one that has remained largely untheorized till date. In this article, we draw on insights from symbolic interactionism, and develop a theoretical framework that highlights the role of context in variation of morality. This framework is informed by a view of the self as a reflexive process that engages with moral norms through giving a self-account in relation to the norms. Based on this view, we distinguish between three contextual dimensions that condition morality: symbolic forms, scenes of address, and narrating subjects. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications of the presented theoretical framework for sociological studies of morality.     

Islam and the legal enforcement of morality

Over 60 years ago, British high court judge Patrick Devlin and legal philosopher H.L.A. Hart fought out a famous debate over the legal enforcement of morality, which was generated by the question of whether homosexuality should be legalized or not. Jurists agree that this debate was won by Hart, also evidenced in the fact that the state has since been retreating from its previous role of moral watchdog. I argue in this article that the two most conflicted and essentially unresolved issues in the integration of Islam, the regulation of the female body and of free speech, have reopened this debate anew, pushing the liberal state toward the legal regulation of morality, thus potentially putting at risk its liberalness. I use the Hart-Devlin debate as a template for comparing and contrasting the Muslim quest for restricting free speech with the host-society quest for restricting the Islamic veil. Accordingly, there is a double threat to liberalism, which this paper brings into view in tandem, one originating from Islam and another from a hypertrophied defense of liberalism.     

Zygmunt Bauman's poisoned gift of morality

Bauman's attempt to develop a sociological theory of morality turning around fundamental premises of Durkheim's approach fails in the last analysis, since in Bauman's view the 'moral party of two' does not constitute a social situation. It is argued that the necessary condition to think sociologically about morality is the concept of reciprocity and thus one can arrive at a view of morality in postmodernity consistent with Bauman's earlier theory of practice. If Bauman's idea about responsibilty as the core of morality is transformed to the idea of an appeal of history to compassion and is supplemented with the idea of reciprocity as an emerging norm it is possible to outline a sociological theory of moral practice according to postmodern conditions.     

Generalized social welfare functionals: Welfarism,morality and liberty

The concept of a generalized social welfare functional (GSWFL) is introduced to permit the integration of appealing moral principles into the traditional Pareto-inclusive welfarist framework of utilitarianism and welfare economics. Attention is focused on a so-called liberal utilitarian GSWFL which incorporates libertarian rights within the utilitarian calculus in a fashion reminiscent of J. S. Mill's philosophy. It is suggested that welfarist social choice theory may be a far more powerful and flexible tool of political and economic analysis than is commonly thought.Revised version of a paper presented at Summer Public Choice Institute held under the auspices of the Council for Philosophical Studies, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada, July 29–August 19, 1984. The Author would particularly like to thank Nick Baigent, Bill Harper, Prasanta Pattanaik, John Rawls, Amartya Sen, Robert Sugden, John Weymark and an anonymous referee for helpful comments. Financial support in the form of Killam and SSHRC Fellowships is gratefully acknowledged     

Two main problems in the sociology of morality

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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Observing abuse: Professional ethics and personal morality in field research

Based on the author's participant observation research in a state institution for the mentally retarded, this article deals with moral and ethical dilemmas that occur in research at settings characterized by routine human abuse. After a discussion of the choices posed by these dilemmas, the author presents preferred solutions. The importance of anticipating potential moral and ethical dilemmas prior to entering the field and delineating the relation between professional ethics and personal morality are discussed as implications of this problem.The author would like to thank Robert Bogdan and Shulamit Reinharz for their extensive comments on previous drafts of this article.Partial support for this article was provided through cooperative agreement No. G0085C03503 with the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research. The opinions expressed herein are solely those of the author.     

Class,culture and morality: a sociological analysis of neo-conservatism

In Britain, as in many other western countries, there emerged in the mid-1970s a variety of business associations, policy and research institutes and political leagues, committed not only to the restoration of a Conservative government, but also to a much broader refurbishing of conservatism. A network of organizations, individuals and ideas grew up that became identified as the New Right. The New Right, which clearly has an international character, was generated by economic and political crises, but it was nurtured by a variety of resentments and discontents whose roots lay in structural and cultural changes that had developed over the whole post-war period. Drawing, in part, upon interviews with leaders of the organisations that did most to mobilize opinion behind the New Right in Britain, the article examines the major changes – particularly those in class structure and in culture – to which the new conservatives were reacting. It explores the major ideological strands – libertarian, neo-liberal and conservative - and looks at the attempts by the New Right to use these to produce changes not only in economic policy but in the cultural and moral fabric of society.     

A theory of prudential values and a rule utilitarian theory of morality

Ethics can be divided into a theory of prudential values and a theory of morality in a narrower sense. My paper proposes a utilitarian — a rule-utilitarian — theory of morality. But it deviates from most of the utilitarian tradition by rejecting the hedonistic and subjectivistic accounts of prudential values favored by many utilitarian writers. While economists tend to define people's utility levels in terms of their actual preferences, ethics must define them in terms of their informed preferences. To prefer A over B does not mean to have a stronger desire for A than for B. Rather, it means to regard one's access to A as being more important than one's access to B. Even though different people often have quite different preferences, their basic desires seem to be much the same. We must choose our moral rules, and our society's moral code as a whole, by their social utility. An important factor in determining their social utility are their expectation effects. Unlike the rule — utilitarian more code, the act — utilitarian moral code would be unable to give proper weight to these expectation effects. It would also unduly restrict our individual freedom. Finally, I shall argue against Kant that morality is primarily a servant of many other human values rather than itself the highest value of human life.     

青少年品德"底线"问题探微

面对社会转型期青少年品德水平"一再"滑降的严峻形势,我们对人的品德降退到一定程度后决不能再滑落的"临界线"问题即人的品德"底线"问题,进行了现实层面的概括描述和理论层面的结构探讨.在此基础上,我们勾勒出青少年品德"底线"教育的"大平台、大榜样、大桥梁、大警戒"策略,以及"大环境陶冶、大身教示范、大专业德育、大拯救攀登"的模式.