Encyclopedia of Sociology Vol

8.‘‘Everyone has the right to . . . national tribunals . . . .’’

9.‘‘No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.’’

10.Elaboration is provided for entitlement to ‘‘. . . fair and public hearing . . . .’’

11.‘‘Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty . . . . No one shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offence . . . .’’

12.‘‘No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation . . . .’’

13.‘‘Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state. Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.’’

14.‘‘Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.’’

15.‘‘Everyone has the right to a nationality

. . . .’’

16.‘‘Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality, or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights . . . entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses. The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.’’

17.‘‘Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others

. . . .’’

18.‘‘Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion . . .’’

19.‘‘Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression . . . .’’

20.‘‘Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association . . . .’’

21.‘‘Everyone has the right to take part in the government . . . .’’

22.‘‘Everyone . . . has the right to social security . . . .’’

23.‘‘Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment . . . .’’

24.‘‘Everyone has the right to rest and leisure

. . . .’’

25.‘‘Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for health and well-being

. . . .’’

26.‘‘Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit. Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human right and fundamental freedoms . . . . Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.’’

27.‘‘Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life . . . . Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.’’

Articles 28 to 30 deal with (1) the rights to an international community in which these rights are realized; (2) respect for the rights and freedoms of others; and (3) maintenance of morality, public order, and the general welfare of a democratic society, in a manner that is not contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

It is not until Article 29 that one realizes that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights implicitly assumes a democratic form of government in all nations. Therefore, the approval of the Universal Declaration in 1948 by a vote of 48 to 0 with 8 abstentions—from the U.S.S.R., Ukraine, Byelorussia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Saudi Arabia, and the Union of South Africa—is not ununderstandable. However, what is important for sociologists is that this is an attempt at identifying of universals, which presumably can be the

basis for examining existing social structures and dealing with explorations of how social structures can be made to support the values involved. But before getting into such an enterprise, it is necessary to reiterate the idea that the values incorporated into the Universal Declaration themselves need to made explicit.

Before going on to subsequent developments in the area of human rights, a few remarks about the Universal Declaration are appropriate. First, human rights in this document are allocated specifically to individuals. This is in keeping with the notion that only individuals have status before the law. Of course, throughout history, particularly with the beginning of industrialization, the law has given status to entities other than individuals, most obviously corporate structures, including religious organizations, schools and foundations, and unions. Provision of rights before the law to such entities has consequences for individual human rights. Second—and this is a consideration that will become more prominent in subsequent comments—the rights provided are ambiguously allocated to adults, but the Universal Declaration provides no definition of adult status. Thus the definition of a vital concept is omitted—but quite a few other important concepts are also named but not defined. Implicitly, the concepts are subject to definition in the state where the individual resides. To give an example of the ambiguity, let us look at Article 16: ‘‘Men and women of full age, without limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family.’’ It is not clear what full age means. Is it twelve years of age, fifteen, sixteen, eighteen, or twenty-one? Men and women have a right to marry, but does that mean one of each, or any combination of men and women? In terms of history and ethnic/religious variations, this is not a trivial question. ‘‘The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.’’ What is a family? There is so much variation in any anthropological view of the family as to make this a very vague concept, and the definition is continuing to change in modern industrial societies, what with the arrival of birth control and divorce and sequential multiple marriage. Sociologists and other social scientists obviously can provide some bases for clarification of these statements of rights and values. Other issues

that arise with United Nations documents are emphasized in subsequent sections.

At this point it is appropriate to note that when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was voted on, it was emphasized that it did not have the status of a treaty. A treaty was in preparation, however, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966), which incorporated much of the Universal Declaration, was adopted by the U.N. General Assembly, in 1966.. By 1985, 80 of the 159 members had ratified the treaty. The treaty changed some of the orientation, however, as can be seen by Article 1, which states: ‘‘All people have the right to self-determina- tion. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development. The States

. . . shall promote the realization of the right of self-determination . . . .’’ The treaty begins with an ambiguous statement on how states are to operate, not on individual human rights. Unfortunately, it also contains language that responds to political entities, and one radical interpretation of the language suggests that any political entity effectively has the right to become independent. It needs to be emphasized that human rights—and closely topics related such as genocide, women’s rights, and children’s rights (to be considered below)— have been the subject of many actions in the U.N. General Assembly.

The literature in the field of human rights does not appear to have a major sociological component, but some sociological studies do exist (Buergenthal 1997; Gros Espeill 1998; Magnarella 1995; Pace 1998).

CHILDREN’S RIGHTS

The issues associated with children’s rights are anticipated in part in the movement from the Universal Declaration to the International Covenant. Article 26 of the Universal Declaration states that everyone has the right to education but that parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education to be given to their children. In the International Covenant, more is said about the parental role. Article 18, for example, states: ‘‘The States . . . undertake to have respect for the liberty of parents . . . to ensure the religious and moral education of their children in conformity with their own convictions.’’ Further, Article 23 states:

‘‘Every child shall have . . . the right to such measures of protection required by his status as a minor, on the part of his family, the society and the State.’’ This elaboration on the involvement of the society and the State raises many questions about the rights of children. Let us look at this in terms of education issues.

First, some attention must be given to the question of what constitutes education. A primary concept obviously is that there should be access to literacy—the ability to read and write. But other skills can also be important, as is exposure to what is classed as knowledge. Using a simplistic index, such as the one used in ‘‘Why Family Planning Matters’’ (1999), it is estimated that, of 4.8 billion people in developing countries, 45 percent of females and 54 percent of males of the relevant age group are in secondary school, suggesting that education is still relatively primitive in most of the world. Possibly more striking is that in twenty-six of the thirty-nine sub-Saharan African nations for which data are reported, less than 20 percent of females of the relevant age group are in secondary school. So, somehow much of the world is not yet in tune with the values in the U.N. treaties with regard to education. For sociologists, even these facts can be a challenge. Assuming that the value of education is seen as an important ‘‘universal’’ value, what is necessary to implement it in developing countries?

The question of the education of children goes beyond such components as literacy, and basic knowledge bases to other values that need attention to be clarified. For example, consider the allocation of rights ‘‘. . . of parents . . . to ensure the religious and moral education of the their children in conformity with their own convictions.’’ This is indoctrination, and it is directly inconsistent with the notion that the children should be educated. To state the matter crassly, children are subject to indoctrination into specific belief systems, with no opportunity for choice. Children are not exposed to competing belief systems. Beyond indoctrination into belief systems, children are subject to behavior restrictions and physical practices. For example, circumcision of male children is a common form of irreversible mutilation that is imposed by parents and often by the dominant culture. Health-based rationale are sometimes advanced for the practice, without apparent support, and in addition it is suggested that the

practice does little harm. The same cannot be said about the ‘‘circumcision’’ of female children, in which the mutilation involves the removal of sensitive sexual tissue. While there has been substantial negative reaction to female circumcision, it is prevalent in a number of less developed countries. It has to be noted that the ‘‘community’’ and the governing bodies in these countries often support the indoctrination of children. This is not surprising, since many of these countries tend to be either formally or informally theocratic and children are indoctrinated not only through their parents but also through other community support systems. By contrast, in developed countries, where education is more widespread and substantial, belief systems may persist through parents and some community support systems, but modifications are obvious. For example, in Italy, where most of the population are Roman Catholic, the birthrate is the lowest among all developed countries, in spite of the papal condemnation of birth control methods other than abstention or rhythm. It would be naive to believe that Italians are not using modern techniques of birth control.

The treaty basis for children’s rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989), was adopted by the U.N. General Assembly on 20 November 1989. The document contains fifty-four articles, but the greater detail does not alter the problem of value clarification, and in some ways some of the statements of rights create greater ambiguity. For example, Article 14 states: ‘‘States

. . . shall respect the right of the child to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.’’ From where will the child have acquired thought, conscience and religion?’’ Note also the role of the parents in Article 18: ‘‘Parents . . . have the primary responsibilities for upbringing and development of the child.’’ Much of the document seems to consist of platitudinous statements that the parents will be good and the state will help them. However, sociologists and other social scientists may find it challenging to try to assess structures that might facilitate this. Situations in different nations may be quite different because of underlying differences in the social and economic circumstances. For example, much current political rhetoric in the United States focuses on strengthening the family so that it can better serve children. How is this to be done? Presumably, sociologists would examine the current dichotomy between reality

and rhetoric, noting the shift over the course of the twentieth century from large families with a single working head to small families, sometimes with two working parents, sometimes with single parent. How could the family be strengthened? The conventional/conservative notion of the mother staying home might not be the right answer. One possible answer that needs to be looked at is discarding school patterns that have their roots in the rural past and replacing them with patterns that meet current needs, such as full-day, year-long schooling, which recognizes that parents are not available until the end of the workday and do not have three-month summer vacations. Another possible answer would be to provide supervision and instruction at a level that corresponds to what research says is needed: rather than acquiescing to the economics of minimum support and unrealistic expectations about what schools as now constituted can produce. When something like the latter is suggested, too often the response is that it is not realistic because of cost and convention. On the contrary, and this is an important point: If that is what the analysis of social scientists finds, there should be insistence that it is realistic.

While there has been a substantial amount written about the rights of the child, one particularly accessible source is especially recommend- ed—the 1996 issue of the American Psychologist that is devoted in large part to the topic (Limber and Wilcox 1996; Melton 1996; Murphy-Berman and Weisz 1996; Saks 1996) With regard to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, it should be noted that at this writing the treaty has been ratified by all member nations of the United Nations except two: Somalia and the United States.

CONCLUSION

Human rights and children’s rights are topics that provide rich potential for research and applied involvement for sociologists and other social scientists. The United Nations has given considerable attention to issues of human rights, and this brief consideration has barely scratched the surface. Sociologists have given attention to some aspects of human rights in detail, including issues of women’s rights and racial and other discrimination, but even in these topics the focus has often been narrow considering the varieties of problems and issues in the world.

Special circumstances bring issues of human rights to prominence, and at the end of the twentieth century the issue of genocide has been given substantial attention. Even this issue should be carefully examined by sociologists and social scientists. For example, in a syndicated column Alexander Cockburn wrote: ‘‘In 1996, [Madeleine] Albright was asked the following question on CBS-TV’s ’60 Minutes’ by Lesley Stahl: ‘We have heard that half a million children have died [in Iraq]. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And you know, is the price worth it?’ Albright infamously replied, ‘I think this is a very hard choice, but the price—we think the price is worth it.’ So, back in Nuremburg time, Albright would certainly have been condemned and maybe hanged, if the standards applied to Seyss-Inquart had been leveled against her and if she had been on the losing side. So would her commanding officer, Bill Clinton’’ (Seattle Times, June 3, 1999). The winning side has always defined what is acceptable, but its actions should be subject to objective analysis. Cockburn went on to note: ‘‘The protocols of the Geneva Convention of 1949 prohibit bombing not justified by clear military necessity. If there is any likelihood the target has a civilian function, then bombing is forbidden. NATO’s bombers have damaged and often destroyed hospitals and healthcare centers, public housing, infrastructure vital to the well-being of civilians, refineries, warehouses, agricultural facilities, schools, road and railways. If Slobodan Milosevic goes on trial before before the International Criminal Court, Clinton, Albright and Defense Secretary William Cohen should have their place on the court’s calendar, too.’’ It has also been pointed out that the NATO bombings in Serbia were carried out with the defined expectation that there would be no NATO military casualties, and there were none. The Serb military was to be reduced in effectiveness, meaning the destruction not only of military physical resources but also of personnel in barracks and persons in government centers and other related circumstances; there was also the expectation that there would be ‘‘collateral damage,’’ that is, civilian casualties. Of course, the Serbs killed Kosovo Albanians during the forced expulsion, but the irony was that after the collapse of the Serbs, the process was reversed. The agenda for social scientists in such matters is one of requiring objectivity in the analysis of the values and the documents and in the reporting of the events. While Cockburn’s critique may be

rejected, it should be done so on the basis of the objective facts and the relevance of defined values, not on the basis of the interpretation of the winning side. History is full of uncomfortable facts, and in retrospectively looking at questions of human rights, we have to remember such things as that victory over Japan in World War II came by means of nuclear destruction of two Japanese cities, not two Japanese armies.

Sociologists have not focused sufficiently on human and children’s rights with regard to clarifying the ‘‘universal’’ values that the United Nations has promulgated and in which the international community has concurred. Some issues are very complex, loaded with traditional and religious values that directly conflict with those in the Universal Declaration, which tend to be stated in broad and/or general humanistic terms. For example, in a nation that is dominated by a single religion— one that is virtually actually a theocracy—dogmas and traditions supported by the community and in families, may dictate highly restricted status for behavior by women. In a modern industrial nation, this may be viewed as depriving women of their human rights.

The conflict between values that emphasize the good of the broader community and those presumed to be individual human rights is also a critical area for attention by sociologists. One such conflict exists in the values involved in family planning and fertility control. From the community point of view, which may be phrased as ‘‘for the good of the society at large,’’ there may be a need for fertility control. For example, although the world (or a nation) may be able to support a tremendous increase in population, such population growth also carries the potential for catastrophic famines and epidemics. The potential problems may result in a general value being placed on the importance of family planning and fertility control by both developed and less developed nations. How is population growth to be attenuated? ‘‘Educational’’ programs have had some success in less developed nations, especially those with a potential for modernization and industrialization. In China, with a tradition of valuing large families, especially male children, the government decided that a strict policy of one child only was necessary to stay population growth. When this policy was implemented, the population was about

90 percent rural, and it currently is still predominantly so. Is such a policy reasonable, and how can it be implemented? The implementation was possible through the form of government that existed, but not without some abuses and also some relaxations of the policy. Here the sociologist can be asked the practical question. How could the policy be implemented without some problems, that is, what would the sociologist instruct the policy makers to do to get the same effect as was accomplished? How are people to be made to adhere to a ‘‘one-child-family’’ policy? Many different types of suggestions can be advanced, including questioning the premise that such a policy is necessary or even appropriate. The argument may shift to empirical questions and estimates, and the like, while the world population continues to increase from 6 billion at the beginning of the twenty-first century to estimates as high as 15 billion by the year 2050. Then the question of quality of life comes into play. At this point, roughly 1.5 billion people live in more or less developed nations and 4.5 billion in less developed nations. What would happen if those in less developed nations used resources at the same rate as those in developed nations? What would happen if, in fifty years, 15 billion people used resources at the level they are currently used in the United States today? The critical analyst might point out that population control is more essential in developed nations, since one additional person there might use twenty (or as much as one hundred) times the resources as one person in a less developed nation. Sociologists obviously have fertile ground for research in examining how social structures might support values that are advanced as ‘‘universals’’ for human and children’s rights.

REFERENCES

Borgatta, Edgar F. 1991 ‘‘Towards a Proactive Sociology.’’ In Annals of the International Institute of Sociology. New Series, Vol. 1. Rome, Italy: University of Rome.

Borgatta, Edgar F. 1994 ‘‘Sociology and the Reality of the Press on Environmental Resources.’’ In William V. D’Antonio, Sasaki Masamichi, and Yoshio Yonebayashi, eds., Ecology, Society, and the Quality of Social Life. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers.

Borgatta, Edgar F. 1996 ‘‘The Relevance of Sociology in Coping with Societal Problems.’’ In Annals de L’Institute Internationale de Sociologie. Vol. 5, pp. 125 – 136. Trieste, Italy: University of Trieste.

Buergenthal, Thomas 1997 ‘‘The Normative and Institutional Evolution of International Human Rights.’’

Human Rights Quarterly 19:703–723.

Campbell, Donald T., and Julian C. Stanley 1963 ‘‘Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Designs for Research on Teaching.’’ In N. L. Gage, ed., Handbook of Research on Teaching. Chicago: Rand McNally.

Congressional Record. December 19, 1998, 105th Congress, 2nd Session, H.Res. 611 in the Senate of the United States. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. (http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/que- ry/D?c105:3:./temp/~c105uc7qTc::).

‘‘Universal Declaration of Human Rights’’ 1949 Department of State Publication 3381. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. (Note: Copies of U.N. publications and documents can be located on the Internet, both at U.N. sites and university sites, e.g., http://www.un.org/overview/rights.html.)

‘‘Why Family Planning Matters’’ 1999 Population Reports, Series J, Number 49, Vol. 27.

EDGAR F. BORGATTA

‘‘Convention on the Rights of the Child’’ 1989 United Nations Document A/Res/44/25. New York: United Nations.

Cook, Thomas D., and Donald T. Campbell 1979 QuasiExperimentation: Design and Analysis Issues for Field Settings. Chicago: Rand McNally.

‘‘Democratic Culture: Ethnos and Demos in Global Perspective’’ 1999 International Sociology 14(3).

Gros Espiell, Hector 1998 ‘‘Universality of Human Rights and Cultural Diversity.’’ International Social Science Journal 50:523–534.

‘‘International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights’’ 1966 Department of State, Selected Documents, No. 5. (revised) (1978). Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Limber, S. P., and B. L. Wilcox 1996 ‘‘Application of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child to the United States.’’ American Psychologist 51:1246–1250.

Magnarella, Paul J. 1995 ‘‘Universal Jurisdiction and Universal Human Rights: A Global Progression.’’

Journal of Third World Studies 12:159–171.

Melton, G. B. 1996 ‘‘The Child’s Right to a Family Environment.’’ American Psychologist 51:1234–1238.

Murphy-Berman, V., and V. Weisz 1996 ‘‘Convention on the Rights of the Child.’’ American Psychologist 51:1231–1233.

Pace, John P. 1998 ‘‘The Development of Human Rights Law in the United Nations, Its Control and Monitoring Machinery.’’ International Social Science Journal

50:499–511.

Saks, M. J. 1996 ‘‘The Role of Research in Implementing the U. N. Convention on the Rights of the Child.’’

American Psychologist 51:1262–1266.

Snow, David A. 1999 ‘‘The Value of Sociology.’’ Sociological Perspectives 42(1):1–22.

Turner, Jonathan H. 1998 ‘‘Must Sociological Theory and Sociological Practice Be So Far Apart?: A Polemical Answer.’’ Sociological Perspectives 41(2):243–277.

HUMANISM

Humanism in its broadest sense can be traced to the philosophical movement that originated in Italy in the second half of the fourteenth century and that affirmed the dignity of the human being. Although over the centuries there have been numerous varieties of humanism, both religious and nonreligious, all have been in agreement on the basic tenet that every human being has dignity and worth and therefore should be the measure of all things.

Humanism, as practiced in sociology, starts from two fundamental assumptions. The first of these is that sociology should be a moral enterprise, one whose fundamental purpose is to challenge the views and conditions that restrain human potential in a given society. The second is that sociology should not be defined as a scientific discipline that embraces ‘‘positivism’’—the position that facts exist independently of the observer and that the observer should be a value-neutral compiler of facts.

Sociologists operating in the humanist tradition hold that the study of society begins with the premise that human beings are free to create their social world and that whatever impinges on that freedom is ultimately negative and destructive. They argue that the use of one of the traditional methodological tools of science—dispassionate ob- servation—has not only taken sociology away from its Enlightenment origins in moral philosophy but is based on a faulty epistemology.

Although diverse theoretical frameworks, such as Marxism, conflict theory, phenomenology, symbolic interaction, and feminist sociology, can all be said to have some form of a humanistic orientation

as a part of their overall framework’s, humanism in sociology is most readily identified with those sociologists who in their teaching, research, and activism gravitate around the Association for Humanist Sociology (AHS), which was founded in 1976 by Alfred McClung Lee, Elizabeth McClung Lee, and Charles Flynn.

The fundamental underpinnings of sociological humanism can be traced back to two traditions that came out of the Enlightenment: moral philosophy and empiricism. Although Modern sociologists see these traditions as separate, to the Enlightenment French and Scottish philosophers (collectively known as the philosophes) they were intertwined and interdependent. The philosophes called for a fusion of morals and science, for a social science that sought to liberate the human spirit and ensure the fullest development of the person. It is this emphasis on moral philosophy and empiricism, as modified by German idealism and more recently by the American philosophical tradition of pragmatism, that constitutes the foundations of humanism in sociology, today.

THE ENLIGHTENMENT AND THE LEGACY OF SOCIOLOGICAL HUMANISM

Although the Enlightenment philosophes initiated the enterprise of modern sociology through their call for the application of scientific principles to the study of human behavior (Rossides 1998), humanist sociologists stress that the philosophes were first and foremost moral philosophers. Science and morality were to be fused, not separated; the ‘‘is’’ and the ‘‘ought’’ were to be merged into a moral science, a science for the betterment of humankind. It was Jean Jacques Rousseau, with his arguments against inequality and for the dignity of the person, who best represents this tradition of moral science tradition Rousseau (1755–1985) started with the fundamental assumption that all people are created equal and from this formulated a radical system of politics. Rousseau and the philosophes were wedded to the idea that individual liberty and freedom prospered only under conditions of minimal external constraint that had to be consensually based. In the eighteenth century, the philosophes articulated their doctrine of individual liberty and freedom chiefly in the idiom of natural rights (Seidman 1983).

The philosophes held that the most important value was the freedom of the individual in a humane society that ensured this freedom. Not having any developed psychology of the individual, of the subjective side of human behavior, or of how institutions are formed, they could not go beyond this modest beginning. They could not fashion a full-blown vision of the free individual within a society based on the principle of human freedom.

This tradition of a moral science is overlooked by contemporary sociologists, who instead focus on the empiricism of the philosophes; but although empiricism without doubt played the greatest role in the rise of social science, it is only one part of what the philosophes advocated. In their dismissal of the moral science tradition and in their virtually unquestioning embrace of the positivism of Comte, Spenser, Durkheim, and the other early founders of sociology as a discipline, contemporary sociologists overlook the philosophes’ concern that there was an epistemological dilemma inherent in the new empirical science they envisioned. If a social science was to arise out of the Enlightenment, it had to have a new conception of knowledge, one that rejected Greek and medieval Christian epistemology. The Aristotelian view held that a definite entity resided within the human body, an entity that passively observed what was going on in the world, just as a spectator does. The observer sees a picture of the world, and it is this passive observation that constitutes experience. Science, in the Aristotelian model, was the process of observing objects as they were thought to be conceived in the human mind. Following Newton, the world was to be understood in terms of mathematical equations by means of axioms that were put in the minds of humans by God and that enabled the mind to picture reality. John Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding ([1690] 1894) represented an early attempt to show that the extreme rationalist notion that the world precisely followed mathematical axioms was in error. Locke argued that first principles did not exist a priori but came from the facts of experience. Locke, however, became caught up in the epistemological dilemma that experience was mental, and not physical, and therefore still had to be located in the ‘‘unscientific’’ concept of mind. This led Locke, like David Hume (1711–1776), to conclude that an exact science of human behavior was unattainable (Randall 1976). Only probabilistic knowledge could be arrived at,

and this could only modestly be used to guide humankind.

Although the epistemological dilemma posed by Locke and other Enlightenment thinkers was real to them, the development of sociology in France, England, and later in the United States discarded these concerns and embraced positivism as the cornerstones of the discipline. Sociology, however, developed differently in Germany, and it is through German social science that the tradition of humanism in sociology was kept alive.

GERMAN IDEALISM

German social science, unlike its English, French, and later American counterparts, was much more influenced by idealism than by empiricism. This influence is due to two giants of philosophy: Immanuel Kant and Georg William Freidrich Hegel.

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804). Kant ([1781] 1965) was interested in answering the basic question of how autonomy and free will were possible in a deterministic Newtonian universe. His answer led him back to Locke’s epistemological dilemma. According to Kant, there is a phenomenal and a neumenological self. Kant called the world as experienced by the individual phenomena and the thing in itself neumena. Since science is concerned with experience, Kant relegated it to the study of phenomena. The neumenon is beyond the scientist’s realm of inquiry, because Kant wanted to claim the neumenon for the moral philosopher. For Kant, the basis of moral philosophy was to be found in the human mind; moral law located a priori in the mind and can be deduced rationally. Kant, like Locke before him, was faced with the dilemma of how the mind works.

Kant’s explanation was that objects of scientific investigation are not simply discovered in the world but are constituted and synthesized a priori in the human mind. The external world that human beings experience is not a copy of reality, but something that can only be experienced and understood in light of a priori forms and categories. According to Kant, these forms and categories determine the form but not the content of external reality. Causation is a product of the mind and is a necessary precondition for the conception of an orderly universe.

Kant believed that he had solved the problem of knowledge through the forms and that he could do the same for ethics. Morally right action, too, is located in the mind. Going back to Rousseau and before him to the fourteenth-century humanists, Kant ([1788] 1949) focused on the dignity of the human being. His notion of the categorical imperative, that each person be treated as an end and never as a means, solidifies the importance of the person as the cornerstone of philosophical inquiry and of humanism. Natural rights are part of the neumenal world, part of the moral self. Kant thus began to look to the mind, to the self, as the primary origin of society. Moral values come from human consciousness: but, lacking a viable theory of consciousness, Kant could go only so far. It was Hegel who took up the challenge and subsequently made further progress toward the development of a humanistic orientation in sociology.

Georg Wilhelm Freidrich Hegel (1770–1831).

Hegel was well versed in the social and moral philosophy of his day, and was particularly steeped in the work of Kant, who was the dominant figure in Germany philosophy at the time. Although Hegel ([1821] 1967) held that Kant’s epistemology was successful in explaining how scientific knowledge was possible, he differed with Kant by rejecting Kant’s belief that the categories were innate and therefor ahistorical. For Hegel, the human mind has to be understood in the context of human history. Human reasons is the product of collective action and as such is constantly evolving toward an ultimate understanding of its own consciousness. There are adumbrations of the sociology of knowledge in Hegel’s view, specifically in his arguments that the Kantian categories, which are used to make sense of the world, change as the political and social climate changes. Hegel is very close to modern sociology in other aspects of his thought, and it is extremely unfortunate that he is so often dismissed because of his ultimate reliance on the metaphysical assumption that total understanding would only come with the realization of the absolute spirit in human history. When Hegel’s contributions are mentioned, it is usually only as having had an influence on Marx, and even then it is inevitably pointed out that Marx turned Hegel ‘‘upside down.’’ These interpretations overlook the fact that Hegel was the first modern theorist to develop an antipositivistic critical approach to society. Hegel rejected positivism because of its

overreliance on empiricism, which forces the individual to find sense impressions meaningful. As was Kant’s philosophy, Hegel’s philosophy was humanist at its core.

Also overlooked is the fact that Hegel not only offered an active epistemology but a social one as well. This socially based epistemology (the categories are conditioned by social and political factors) also led him to conceive of a socially based moral philosophy. Whereas Kant held that the concept of freedom was based in the mind of the individual, Hegel, like Rousseau, believed that freedom could only be expressed in terms of a supportive community.

Perhaps Hegel’s most important contribution to modern social science is that he was among the first theorists to look at the social development of self, something that makes him a forerunner of humanist sociology. For Hegel ([1807] 1967), the self must be understood as a process, not as a static reality. The self develops as the mind negotiates intersubjectivity. We experience ourselves as both an intending subject and as an object of experience. The mind develops and strives for ultimate truth in this context, which, to Hegel, is freedom. The essence of being is, therefore, a self-reflexive struggle for freedom. Hegel’s idealism led him to conclude that objective analysis is always mediated by subjective factors and points toward freedom. In Hegel, there is the outline of a critical, humanistic sociology. He offered an active, antipositivistic, socially conditioned epistemology, with an emphasis upon freedom through the seeking of self knowledge, along with a critique of any non-moral- ly based society.

PRAGMATISM AND HUMANISM

The importance of pragmatism for a humanistic orientation in sociology lies in its assumption of an active epistemology that undergirds an active theory of the mind, thereby challenging the positivistic behaviorism of the time made popular by the likes of John B. Watson. For the pragmatists, how the mind comes to know cannot be separated from how the mind actually develops.

George Herbert Mead ([1934] 1974) exemplifies the pragmatists’ view concerning the development of mind. Consciousness and will arise from problems. Individuals ascertain the intentions of

others and then respond on the basis of their interpretations. If there were no interactions with others, there would be no development of the mind. Individuals possess the ability to modify their own behavior; they are subjects who construct their acts rather than simply responding in predetermined ways. Human beings are capable of reflexive behavior: that is, they can turn back and think about their experiences. The individual is not a passive agent who merely reacts to external constraints, but someone who actively chooses among alternative courses of action. Individuals interpret data furnished to them in social situation. Choices of potential solutions are only limited by the given facts of the individual’s presence in the larger network of society. This ability to choose among alternatives makes individuals both determined and determiners (Meltzer et al. 1977).

What Mead and the pragmatists stressed was the important notion that the determination of ideas—in particular, the impact of social structure on the mind of an individual—is a social-psycho- logical process. Thinking follows the pattern of language. Language is the mechanism through which humans develop a self and mind, and language is social because words assume meaning only when they are interpreted by social behavior. Social patterns establish meanings. Language sets the basis for reason, logic, and by extension all scientific and moral endeavors. One is logical when one is in agreement with one’s universe of discourse; one is moral when one is in agreement with one’s community. Language is a mediator of social behavior in that with a language come values and norms. Value judgments and collective patterns exist behind words; meaning is socially bestowed.

Although Mead was the most important pragmatist for understanding the development of self, the epistemology of pragmatism was most precisely formulated by John Dewey (1929, 1931). Dewey’s epistemology represented a final break with the notion that the mind knows because it is a spectator to reality. For Dewey, thought is spatiotemporal. Eternal truths, universals, a priori systems are all suspect. Experience is the experience of the environment—an environment that is physical, biological, and cultural. Ideas are not Platonic essences but rather are functional to the experience of the individual (Dewey 1931). This position is antipositivistic in that the mind deals

only with ideas and, therefore, does not ponder reality, but only ideas about reality. Truth is not absolute but is simply what is consistent with experience.

The individual is engaged in an active confrontation with the world; mind and self develop in a social process. The pragmatists provided an epistemological justification for freedom (the basic tenet of humanism). The mind develops in a social context and comes to know as it comes into being. Any restriction on the freedom of the mind to inquire and know implies a restriction on the mind to fully develop. The pragmatists rounded out Hegel’s ([1807] 1967) view that ultimate truth is freedom by showing that the mind needs freedom to develop in a social context. Epistemology and freedom are inseparable.

Pragmatism, by joining epistemology and freedom via the social development of mind, also provides a solution for the seeming incompatibility between an instrumental and an intrinsic approach to values. The value of freedom is instrumental in that it is created in action (the action of the developing mind); but it is also intrinsic in that the mind cannot fully develop without the creation of an environment that ensures freedom. This integrated epistemological framework provides the basis for a humanistic methodology for sociology.

PRAGMATISM, METHODOLOGY, AND

HUMANISM

Dewey and Mead developed a methodology that gave social scientists a different frame of reference from that of the ‘‘traditional scientific methodology.’’ Flexibility was the main characteristic of their pragmatic methodology—it did not offer specific forms or languages to which social problems had to be adapted. Instead, the form and language of the method grew out of the problem itself. The social scientist, thus, fashions his or her own methodology depending upon the problem studied. New concepts and methodologies arise from efforts to overcome obstacles to successful research. Techniques are developed that enable the researcher to be both a participant in and observer of social structures. There is an instrumentalist linkage between theory and practice as it is incorporated into the humanist sociologist’s life. This is what Alfred McClung Lee (1978), a leading humanist sociologist, meant when he wrote: ‘‘Sociologists cannot

be persons apart from the human condition they presumably seek to understand’’ (p. 35). This is what C. Wright Mills (1959) meant when he wrote: ‘‘The most admirable thinkers within the scholarly community . . . do not split their work from their lives.’’ (p. 195).

For the humanist sociologist, the main purpose in amassing a body of knowledge is to serve human needs; knowledge must be useful. By accepting this dictum, humanist sociologists extend the analysis of what is to the analysis of what ought to be. Knowledge should provide answers for bringing about a desired future state of affairs, a plan that can be achieved through the methodological insights of pragmatism whereby the researcher is both participant and observer.

The dilemma of which values to choose is answered by opting for the pragmatist’s emphasis upon responsibility as a moral standard which assumes that a fundamental quality of human beings is their potentiality for ethical autonomy. People not only are but ought to be in charge of their own destiny within the limits permitted by their environment. Individual character development takes place to the extent that persons can and do decide on alternative courses of action (Dewey 1939).

Pragmatism is grounded upon an assumption of freedom of choice. However, choice among alternatives is always limited. It is in pointing out these limitations in the form of power relations and vested interests behind social structures that humanist sociology builds upon pragmatism and thereby confronts the basic sociological criticism of pragmatism—that it lacks a viable notion of social structure. Humanist sociology seeks to fashion a full-blown vision of the free individual within a society based on the principle of human freedom.

HUMANIST SOCIOLOGY TODAY

Humanist sociology has moved beyond pragmatism via its attempt to spell out the social structural conditions for the maximization of freedom. Humanist sociology is based on moral precepts, the foremost of which is that of freedom—‘‘the maximization of alternatives’’ (Scimecca 1995, p.1). This is assumed to be the most desirable state for human beings—and the goal of sociology is to work toward the realization of conditions that insure this