Sociology as the Study of Morality

McCaffree, Kevin

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-32250-6_21

Cited by 6 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 104 publications

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“…It is the task of the analytical sociology of morality to struggle with the fragmentation of the current vision of morality, and this perspective’s success will determine whether a sociological approach to the subject would eventually become something more coherent than just a collection of diverse studies suitable for periodic reviews (Hitlin and Vaisey, 2013; McCaffree, 2016). Although the attempts of the sociological classics to create comprehensive analytical schemas might look naïve, no one to date has offered a viable alternative, and sociologists still lack a common language to describe and explain moral reality.…”

Section: Two Possible Perspectives For the Sociology Of Moralitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The sociology of morality, a perspective that seeks to explore moral phenomena in their relation to the social and cultural contexts, is a recently ‘rediscovered’ field of studies (McCaffree, 2016) – over the past few years, considerable efforts have been made for its re-institutionalization, which includes, most importantly, publishing a couple of specific volumes (Hitlin and Vaisey, 2010a; Jeffries, 2014) and founding an American Sociological Association section on the subject. While the importance of reviving sociologists’ interest in this once almost forgotten topic is now recognized, it is yet not clear what this new research program should look like, especially given that the theme of morality is widely and successfully investigated (at least, in terms of both academic and public impact) in biology, psychology and other behavioural sciences.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Rediscovering the Moral: The ‘Old’ and ‘New’ Sociology of Morality in the Context of the Behavioural Sciences

Bykov

2018

Sociology

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This article examines the relationships between the sociology of morality and behavioural sciences. It is argued that, although the classical sociological tradition provides valuable theoretical resources for understanding moral phenomena, the prevalence of behavioural sciences in the field is problematic for the ‘new’ sociology of morality, particularly given a wider naturalist movement represented by some modern social theorists. In the context of the current discussion about the future of the sociology of morality, especially the question of how it should react to the dominating biological and psychological approaches, I propose two possible perspectives for the field’s ongoing development.

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Section: Two Possible Perspectives For the Sociology Of Moralitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rediscovering the Moral: The ‘Old’ and ‘New’ Sociology of Morality in the Context of the Behavioural Sciences

Bykov

2018

Sociology

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“…Our topic here is disgust as the emotion theorized to play the key role in a domain of moral judgments called purity (also known as divinity or sanctity). Rozin, Lowery, et al’s (1999) theory of disgust and purity continues to inspire research and application (Arden & Rabinovitz, 2020; Kupfer et al, 2020; McCaffree, 2016; Olatunji et al, 2016; Piazza & Landy, 2020; Prinz, 2016). Theorists emphasize the role of disgust in moral judgments: Disgust “can have dramatic effects” on our moral views (Kelly, 2011, p. 131); “Disgust is strongly implicated in moral judgment” (Plakias, 2013, p. 261).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Deconstructing disgust as the emotion of violations of body and soul.

Kollareth¹,

Shirai²,

Helmy³

et al. 2022

Emotion

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Through the evolutionary process of preadaptation, disgust was coopted to serve as the guardian not just of one's body but also of one's soul-or so it has been theorized. On this theory, elicitors include health-related threats and nonhealth-related degrading acts, which together form a pancultural domain of morality. A prediction from this theory was examined here in four samples: 96 English-speaking Americans, 96 Malayalam-speaking Indians, 136 Japanese-speaking Japanese, and 194 Arabic-speaking Egyptians. Participants read health and nonhealth threat stories (derived from prior studies) and were asked to judge how immoral the action was, what word describes the emotion elicited by the story, and what facial expression conveys that emotion. Even though health threats elicited disgust, they were seen as barely immoral if at all. In contrast, nonhealth events were immoral but elicited anger more than disgust. Emotional reactions to heath and nonhealth threats did not indicate that they are the same emotion.

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“…A more recent theoretical framework known as MFT, moral foundation theory (Haidt & Joseph, 2007), is an expansion of CAD theory and includes both (C) loyalty and authority, which corresponds to the ethic of community, and (A) harm and fairness, which corresponds to the ethic of autonomy (Haidt & Graham, ; Haidt & Kesebir, ). CAD and MFT continue to inspire research in psychology and conceptual debate in other disciplines (Caprariello, Cuddy, & Fiske, ; Dastani & Pankov, ; Keltner & Horberg, ; McCaffree, ; Prinz, ; Steiger & Reyna, ).…”

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confidence: 99%

Do community and autonomy moral violations elicit different emotions?

et al. 2018

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According to one important set of theories, different domains of immorality are linked to different discrete emotions-panculturally. Violations against the community elicit contempt, whereas violations against an individual elicit anger. To test this theory, American, Indian and Japanese participants (N = 480) indicated contempt and anger reactions (with verbal rating and face selection) to both the types of immorality. To remedy method problems in previous research, community and autonomy violations were created for the same story-frame, by varying the target to be either the community or an individual. Community and autonomy violations did not differ significantly in the emotion elicited: overall, both types of violations elicited more anger than contempt (and more negative emotion of any kind than positive emotion). By verbal rating, Americans and Indians reported more anger than contempt for both types of violation, whereas Japanese reported more contempt than anger for both types. By face selection, the three cultural groups selected anger more than contempt for both types of violation. The results speak against defining distinct domains of morality by their association with distinct emotions.

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Sociology as the Study of Morality

Cited by 6 publications

References 104 publications

Rediscovering the Moral: The ‘Old’ and ‘New’ Sociology of Morality in the Context of the Behavioural Sciences

Rediscovering the Moral: The ‘Old’ and ‘New’ Sociology of Morality in the Context of the Behavioural Sciences

Deconstructing disgust as the emotion of violations of body and soul.

Do community and autonomy moral violations elicit different emotions?

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