Substance Abuse,Homelessness, Developmental Decision-Making and Spirituality: A Women's Health Issue

ABSTRACT

A qualitative methodology was used to examine the relationship between homeless women's spirituality, substance abuse, moral reasoning and developmental decision-making. Findings indicated that a lack of development in spirituality and the ability to make decisions in childhood is related to homeless, addicted women's inability to maintain abstinence and achieve social independence. Spirituality impacted decisions to abstain from substance abuse and increased the women's social independence. Findings suggest that treatment needs to incorporate spirituality, family of origin, and the development of skills for independent decision-making. The authors propose that childhood maltreatment, homelessness and substance abuse impede spiritual development. Therefore, substance abuse treatment needs to include a focus on spirituality and moral reasoning in the recovery process.     

His Brothers' Keeper: John Brown,Moral Stewardship and Interracial Abolitionism

Recent biographies of abolitionist John Brown emphasise his uniqueness and cast him as an anomalous figure in the anti-slavery movement. This article, however, makes the case for Brown's representativeness by connecting his career to his formative years in north-eastern Ohio, a geographical and cultural context that shaped Brown's lifelong image of himself as an adviser and manager of wilderness communities. That self-image made Brown similar to white ‘moral stewards’ in many reform movements. Even Brown's interracial relationships, though difficult to interpret because of sparse documentary evidence, were shaped partly by the culture of moral stewardship in which Brown's career began.     

Moral panic,moral regulation,and the civilizing process

This article compares two analytical frameworks ostensibly formulated to widen the focus of moral panic studies. The comparative analysis suggests that attempts to conceptualize moral panics in terms of decivilizing processes have neither substantively supplemented the explanatory gains made by conceptualizing moral panic as a form of moral regulation nor provided a viable alternative framework that better explains the dynamics of contemporary moral panics. The article concludes that Elias's meta‐theory of the civilizing process potentially provides explanatory resources to investigate a possible historical‐structural shift towards the so‐called age of (a)moral panic; the analytical demands of such a project, however, require a sufficiently different line of inquiry than the one encouraged by both the regulatory and decivilizing perspectives on moral panic.     

Young people,social change and the negotiation of moral authority

This paper presents some of the main findings of the study ‘Youth values: identity, diversity and social change’, focusing on the ways in which young people aged between 11 and 16 negotiate moral authority. It begins by discussing young people's perceptions of social change, identifying narratives of both progress and decline. The structure of young people's values are then briefly described, including differences relating to gender, location, social class and age. The factors that contribute to the legitimacy of moral authority in young people's eyes are explored through young people's accounts of school discipline, bullying, parenting and media violence. The paper draws on a range of data sources including questionnaires, focus group discussions, individual interviews and research assignments in which young people undertook their own interviews with adults. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Mother-in-Law Mystique: A Tale of Conflict,Criticism and Resistance

While women have been described in various disciplines as the kin keepers of family relationships, empirical data show that the greatest rivalry in newly constructed heterosexual families exists between two women: the mother-in-law and the daughter-in-law. Numerous rituals are employed across cultures in order to ease the expected tension between these two rival women. Yet, the topic seems to have been overlooked by feminist and family therapy research alike. Inspired by Bowen's (1978) concept of differentiation of self and Linn's (1998) and Gilligan's (Linn & Gilligan, 1990) ideas of the resisting self, the present study examines these female rivals as moral critics in the war zone of the family. The study sample consists of 14 mothers-in-law, daughters-in-law, and sons/husbands, belonging to five Israeli families of diverse cultural origin. Gilligan's Listening Guide was used to assess how participants saw the dilemmas of their situation, adopted a critical distance, and formed an authoritative moral voice.     

Young People as Moral Beings: Childhood,Morality and Inter‐Generational Relationships

This article uses the work of Goffman to explore how a group of older children presented a moral self in a study of inter‐generational relationships. By reflecting critically on their own behaviour and that of other young people and adults, they presented themselves as morally competent agents, whilst questioning the taken‐for‐granted moral competence of adults. Their presentation of a moral self involved portraying themselves as moral beings, whilst acknowledging that they are also moral becomings. The findings highlight how the embedded authority and associated moral accountability of adults in relation to children militate against recognising children's moral agency.     

Freedom,necessity, judgement Trilling,Arendt and '9/11 liberalism'

Abstract

This article examines the thought of Hannah Arendt and Lionel Trilling in order to explore some core ideas crucial to past and present framings of liberal politics. More specifically, their interpretations of Herman Melville's novella Billy Budd are situated in their cold war context and the strengths and limits of each are discussed. This context – and the place of Arendt's and Trilling's Melville-inspired understandings of the notions of 'freedom', 'necessity' and 'judgement' within it – are then finally pressed into the service of an analysis of contemporary political questions. The article closes by arguing that the predicament of contemporary liberalism is, given some of the moral and political issues raised since 9/11, in some ways analogous to that confronted by the 'Cold War liberalism' associated with Arendt and Trilling. The intelligence, perspective and appreciation of complexity that characterize their work provide an example that liberals, whatever their position on the 'war on terror', can ill afford to ignore.     

Donald Trump's discursive field: A juncture of stigma contests over race,gender, religion,and democracy

Donald Trump's election to the U.S. Presidency in 2016 qualifies as one of the more shocking events in American political history. This article reviews the literature on the social construction of Donald Trump's political career. It finds prominent ideological laminations over racism, Islamophobia, nativism, sexism, Christianity, and right‐wing populism in Trump's discursive field. This article argues that Trump's discursive field comprises a juncture of stigma contests over the moral worth of numerous collective identities including men, women, racial minorities, immigrants, Muslims, Christians, and the middle class. Such stigma contests likely exacerbate recognition gaps created by neoliberal policies. This review suggests that scholars should continue to examine the connection between Trump's political career and stigmatization. Moreover, cultural sociologists should ready themselves to track the dialectical response to Trump and to assess the lasting impact on the American normative order.     

Schema via Structure? Personal Network Density and the Moral Evaluation of Infidelity

This article considers whether the density of a person's social network is related to his/her moral attitudes toward infidelity. Integrating recent sociological thinking on moral schemas with network theory's insights about deviance and structural independence, I employ data from a representative sample of American men aged 57–85. Findings indicate that men with the densest personal networks are least likely to condone infidelity. This association, moreover, was independent of men's education, their beliefs about religion and sex, and attitudes about their partners, among other factors. The findings imply an affinity between micro‐social structure and moral judgment, suggesting that network density can help constrain even the expression of moral attitudes.     

Moral Reasoning in Interactional Context: Strategic Uses of Care and Justice Arguments in Mediation Hearings*

Previous studies of moral reasoning have treated moral reasoning as a product of the individual. This article extends the study of moral reasoning by analyzing its use in strategic interaction. I analyze how participants in a naturally occurring situation of conflict use moral arguments strategically and negotiate over the types of arguments that are acceptable. Gilligan's Care and Justice modes of moral reasoning are identified in participants' justifications for positions taken in nine videotaped mediation hearings. I found that participants may use both modes of reasoning during the course of a hearing, and that the type of moral argument used is often a response to the actions of other participants. Strategic uses of moral arguments included shifting mode to challenge or support another's position, bridging a difference in mode between two disputants, and shifting mode to refocus the topic. Because of their institutional and interactional roles in the hearings, mediators play a major role in negotiations over mode of moral reasoning.     

The moral bases of social work

Social work's conventional “value-talk” presents a professionally neutral value-system for making moral judgements, but paradoxically neglects the professional social role of making moral judgements on behalf of society. Conventional statements of social work's moral values neglect economic, political, and aesthetic value judgements and issues of logic, rhetoric, and epistemology, which should also be included in value debate. Social work's value codes are not 'basic', because they are not usable in practice, are not distinctive, comprehensive, or universal. Historical and sociological evidence suggests that social workers make moral judgements of their clients on behalf of society. These judgements should be earned out within a more comprehensive and better articulated value system, which is applied in the detail of everyday practice.     

Exploring the moral experiences of Anishinaabeg children in Rapid Lake,Quebec

This study was developed to guard against the imposition of settler-based colonial ethnocentric conceptions of moral development by exploring the everyday moral experiences of children in an Anishinaabeg community. A focused ethnography of 33 children over 3.5 months was conducted, which included participant observation, group activities and individual and group interviews. Drawing on their unique cultural and social background, children showed they had rich moral understandings and acted as moral agents in matters that affected them. These results help advance our understanding of what is morally significant to Anishinaabeg children in their daily experiences, in line with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's Calls to Action.     

From Transgression to Suppression: Implications of Moral Values and Societal Norms on Emotional Labour

This article endeavours to develop a conceptual perspective of moral values and societal norms, and how they impact on emotion regulation within employment contexts. The article draws on social psychology and emotional labour literature to explore the concept of contextual emotional labour. I argue that the conflicting requirements of one's societal and employment contexts may require one to transgress one's moral values to fulfil job requirements. I also argue that it is important to examine the aversive state(s) that may follow one's transgression and how this is managed in the workplace.     

Moral theory based on the ‘heart’versus the ‘mind’: Schopenhauer's and Durkheim's critiques of Kantian ethics

Schopenhauer criticized Kant's moral theory on the grounds that it was non-empirical and inadequate, because it attempted to establish morality on the basis of reason and duty. Contrary to Kant, Schopenhauer argued that genuine morality is irrational, based on compassion, and a human product, hence that it could be studied empirically. Schopenhauer established the ‘science of morality’which occupied the attention of a host of turn of the century precursors of the social sciences, especially Durkheim. Durkheim's version of the science of moral facts is compared and contrasted with Schopenhauer's critique of Kant, and it is demonstrated that Durkheim tends to follow Schopenhauer's lead. Problems with Durkheim's and Schopenhauer's critiques of Kantian ethics are also discussed.     

Social Capital in Korea: Relational Capital,Trust, and Transparency

This article starts by distinguishing two different types of social capital, that is, societal moral resource capital and relational capital. Social capital as a societal moral resource is best characterized in Putnam's works. Social capital as the relational mobilization of information and control is best conceptualized by Coleman. By contrasting these two aspects of social capital, and by contextualizing the peculiarity of social relations in East Asian countries, this article explores the characteristics of social capital in Korea. For that purpose, I focus on the working of relational capital, or inmaek, in the creation and reproduction of social inequality. Moreover, I calculate the macro-level transformation of Korean society in terms of the role of societal moral resources.     

Cyberbullying perpetration among Chinese adolescents: The role of interparental conflict,moral disengagement,and moral identity

The current study examined the relationships among interparental conflict, moral disengagement, moral identity, and cyberbullying perpetration among adolescents. Participants were 649 Chinese high school students (aged 11–19 years, 48% girls). Hierarchical multiple regression analysis and SPSS macro PROCESS were conducted to test the proposed the moderated mediation model. Results showed that moral disengagement was positively correlated with adolescents' cyberbullying perpetration behavior. Moral identity was negatively related to cyberbullying perpetration behavior. Moral disengagement and moral identity mediated the effect of interparental conflict on cyberbullying perpetration. Moreover, moral identity moderated the indirect effect of interparental conflict on cyberbullying perpetration behavior through moral disengagement. These findings suggest that interparental conflict could foster cyberbullying perpetration through adolescents' moral disengagement and moral identity. In addition, a strong moral identity can buffer the negative effect of moral disengagement on cyberbullying perpetration.     

The Devil Rejoiced: Volk,Devils and Moral Panic in White South Africa, 1978–1982

The first four years of P.W. Botha's premiership in apartheid South Africa were plagued by intra‐party politicking, renewed anti‐apartheid resistance, economic instability, and Satan. Between 1978 and 1982, the heavy political rhetoric of “total onslaught” inflected perceived “moral onslaught” in a virulent moral panic over Satanism in white, and particularly Afrikaner, South Africa. With attention to its discursive and socio‐political context, this paper seeks to explore the emergence of this distinct satanic moral panic in white South African history, arguing that it reflects the intense political and moral ambiguity of white society as the edifices of apartheid began to fracture.     

American Indians,civilized performance and the question of rights

Abstract

Between the middle of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, public arguments about the eligibility of American Indians for citizenship, and about the obligations of white Americans toward Indian populations, shifted from a focus on the rights of the Indian minority to a focus on the rights of the white majority. Similarly, discussions of the criteria for Indian citizenship also shifted, from a concern with the moral duty of the majority to ensure the human rights of the minority to a consideration of whether any claims to rights must be respected on moral grounds alone. The writings of Lydia Maria Child and Lyman Abbott on the 'Indian question' illustrate the ways in which Child's paternalistic family model of entitlement is replaced by a later model that emphasizes culture over morality, behavior over rights.     

Charitable giving and lay morality: understanding sympathy,moral evaluations and social positions

This paper examines how charitable giving offers an example of lay morality, reflecting people's capacity for fellow‐feeling, moral sentiments, personal reflexivity, ethical dispositions, moral norms and moral discourses. Lay morality refers to how people should treat others and be treated by them, matters that are important for their subjective and objective well‐being. It is a first person evaluative relation to the world (about things that matter to people). While the paper is sympathetic to the ‘moral boundaries’ approach, which seeks to address the neglect of moral evaluations in sociology, it reveals this approach to have some shortcomings. The paper argues that although morality is always mediated by cultural discourses and shaped by structural factors, it also has a universalizing character because people have fellow‐feelings, shared human conditions, and have reason to value.