Abstract
This article develops a research position that allows cultural sociologists to compare morality across sociohistorical cases. In order to do so, the article suggests focusing analytic attention on actions that fulfill the following criteria: (a) actions that define the actor as a certain kind of socially recognized person, both within and across fields; (b) actions that actors experience-or that they expect others to perceive-as defining the actor both intersituationally and to a greater extent than other available definitions of self; and (c) actions to which actors either have themselves, or expect others to have, a predictable emotional reaction. Such a position avoids both a realist moral sociology and descriptive-relativism, and provides sociologists with criteria for comparing moral action in different cases while staying attuned to social and historical specificity.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 272-293 |
Number of pages | 22 |
Journal | Sociological Theory |
Volume | 29 |
Issue number | 4 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Dec 2011 |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Sociology and Political Science