Society as a factory of morality

The strategy of social-causal explanation of moral norms (i.e. conceiving of morality as, in principle, deducible from social conditions; and as effected by social processes) goes back to at least Montesquieu. His suggestions that, for instance, polygyny arises either from a surplus of women or from the particularly rapid ageing of women in certain climatic conditions may be by now quoted in history books mainly to illustrate, by contrast, the progress made by social science since its

Towards a Sociological Theory of Morality

171

Inception; and yet the pattern of explanation exemplified by Montesquieu's hypotheses was to remain by and large unquestioned for a long time to come. It has become a part of rarely challenged social-scientific common sense that the very persistence of a moral norm testifies to the presence of a collective need with which it has been designed to cope; and that, consequently, all scientific study of morality should attempt to reveal such needs and to reconstruct the social mechan­isms that - through the imposition of norms - secure their satisfaction.

With the acceptance of this theoretical assumption and the related interpretive strategy, what followed was mostly circular reasoning, best perhaps expressed by Kluckhohn, who insisted that the moral norm or custom would not exist were they not functional (i.e. useful for the satisfaction of needs or for the taming of otherwise destructive behavioural tendencies - like, for example, the reduction of anxiety and the channelling of inborn aggressiveness achieved by Navaho witchcraft); and that the disappearance of a need which had originated and sustained the norm would soon lead to the disappearance of the norm itself. Any failure of the moral norm to serve its assigned task (i.e. its inability to cope adequately with the original need) would have similar results. This practice of the scientific study of morality has been codified in most explicit of forms by Malinowski, who stressed the essential instrumentality of morality, its subordinate status in relation to 'essential human needs' like food, security or defence against an inclement climate.

On the face of it, Durkheim (whose treatment of moral phenomena turned into the canon of sociological wisdom, and virtually defined the meaning of the specifically sociological approach to the study of morality) rejected the call to relate norms to needs; he did, after all, sharply criticize the accepted view that moral norms found binding in a particular society must have attained their obligatory force through the process of conscious (let alone rational) analysis and choice. In apparent opposition to the ethnographic common sense of the time, Durkheim insisted that the essence of morality should be sought precisely in the obligatory force it displays, rather than in its rational correspondence to the needs the members of society seek to satisfy; a norm is a norm not because it has been selected for its fitness to the task of promoting and defending members' interests, but because the members - through learning, or through the bitter consequences of transgression - convince themselves of its forceful presence. Durkheim's criticism of the extant interpretations of moral phenomena was not, however, aimed against

174

Ibu'urds a Sociological Theory of Morality

Once this self-confidence had been re-forged into social theory, important consequences followed for the interpretation of morality. By definition, pre-social or a-social motives could not be moral. By the same token, the possibility that at least certain moral patterns may be rooted in existential factors unaffected by contingent social rules of cohabitation could not be adequately articulated, let alone seriously considered. Even less could it be conceived, without falling into contradiction, that some moral pressures exerted by the human existential mode, by the sheer fact of being with others', may in certain circumstances be neutralized or suppressed by countervailing social forces; that, in other words, society - in addition, or even contrary, to its moralizing function' - may, at least on occasion, act as a 'morality-silencing' force.

As long as morality is understood as a social product, and causally explained in reference to the mechanisms which, when they function properly, assure its constant supply' - events which offend the diffuse yet deep-seated moral feelings and defy the common conception of good and evil (proper and improper conduct) tend to be viewed as an outcome of failure or mismanagement of moral industry'. The factory system has served as one of the most potent metaphors out of which the theoretical model of modern society is woven, and the vision of the social production of morality offers a most prominent example of its influence. The occurrence of immoral conduct is interpreted as the result of an inadequate supply of moral norms, or supply of faulty norms (i.e. norms with an insufficient binding force); the latter, in its turn, is traced to the technical or managerial faults of the 'social factory of morality' - at best to the unanticipated consequences' of ineptly co-ordinated productive efforts, or to the interference of factors foreign to the productive system (i.e. incompleteness of control over the factors of production). Immoral behaviour is then theorized as deviation from the norm', which stems from the absence or weakness of socializing pressures', and in the last account from defectiveness or imperfection of the social mechanisms designed to exert such pressures.' At the level of social system, such an interpretation points to unresolved managerial problems (of which Durkheim's anomie is a foremost example). At lower levels, it points to shortcomings of educational institutions, weakening of the family, or the impact of unextirpated antisocial enclaves with their own counter-moral socializing pressures. In all cases, however, the appearance of immoral conduct is understood us the manifestation of pre-social or a-social drives bursting out from their socially manufactured cages, or escaping enclosure in the first place. Immoral conduct is always a return to a

Towards a Sociological Theory "f Moralit y 175

ore-serial state, or a failure to depart fromit. It is always connected with some resistance to social pressures, or at least to the 'tight social pressures (the concept which ,n the Light of Durkhe.in s theoretical scheme can be only interpreted as identical with the social norm, that is with the prevailing standards, w.th the average, Morality being a social product, resistance to standards promoted by society as behavioural norms must lead to the incidence of immoral action.

This theory of morality concedes the right of society (of any society, to be sure- or, in a more liberal interpretation, of every social collectivity not necessarily of the global-societal¹ size, but capable of supporting in joint conscience by a network of effective sanctions) to impose its own ubstantive version of moral behaviour; and concurs with the practice Which social authority claims the monopoly of moral judgement, tacitly accepts the theoretical illegitimacy of all judgements that are d grounded in the exercise of such monopoly; so that for all practice con-tents and purposes moral behaviour becomes synonymous with social conformity and obedience to the norms observed by the major.ty.

The challenge of the Holocaust

The circular reasoning prompted by virtual identification of moral with social discipline makes the da.ly practice of sooology well-n _immune to the 'paradigm crisis'. There are few occas.ons, if any the application of the extant paradigm ™V ™™^emh*"* Programmatic relat.vism built ,nto this vision of morality

_{PP £}

reconstruct,on y jng

fam.liar category of unsavoury, yet regular and doci^Iby-P

d tem

Programmatic relat.vism built ,nto this vision of morality provides ultimate safety valve in case the observed norms do Up bond moral revulsron. It therefore takes events of excepnonal drjmad poj to shatter the grip of the dom.nant paradigm and to scan: a^te , search for alternative groundings of ethical ?&^**^a*,', necess.ty of such a search is v.ewed with susp.oon, and effo t j to narrate the dramatic expenence in a form ^°\t^4 accommodat,on within the old scheme; th>s is normally ■^Tj by presenting the events as truly umque, and hence not^quite r the general theory of moral.ry (as distmct from the history of ■ _much like the Tali of g.ant meteontes would not nece sit^ reconstruct,on of evolutionary theory), or by disjoining it in •

fam.liar category of unsay, y g ^_P

Hmitations of the moral.ty-produc.ng system. If neithqr 1

expedients measures up to the magnitude of the events, a

l d doci^Iby-P

176