Hearts and Minds and Morality: Analyzing Moral Vocabularies in Qualitative Studies

A strategy of analyzing the moral vocabulary of a social movement or subculture is proposed by which ethnographies and other qualitative works may place the moral and ethical concepts used by respondents into a broader sociological context. Through examining the moral resources, the status hierarchy which the specific moral resources within a given moral vocabulary form, and the historical and cultural contexts within which these moral resources exist, it is argued that it becomes possible to analyze and anticipate the moral claims and form of discourse which will be produced by a specific movement and/or subculture. It is also argued that this method may be used to predict how the opposition to a movement and/or subculture is perceived through the formation of an antithetical moral vocabulary.