Talcott Parsons and the Sociology of Morality
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Talcott Parsons and the Sociology of Morality Raquel Weiss 1 & Jayme Gomes Neto 1 Accepted: 5 October 2020/ # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract In this article, we propose a brief reconstruction of Talcott Parsons’ writings − from his first major book, The Structure of Social Action, to his later writing on the 1960s and 1970s − in order to clarify his main contributions to a sociological discussion of morality. In so doing, we hope to place Talcott Parsons as one of the forerunners of the sociology of morality conceived as an emerging area of research in the social sciences. Throughout this reconstruction, we also try to situate Parsons in terms of his intellectual lineage pointing out that his formulations reveal important affinities with the theoretical perspective of morality that began with Émile Durkheim. Based on these assumptions, we aim to show, albeit on a preliminary basis, how this dialogue contributes to a more precise delineation of a research program in the field. Keywords Talcott Parsons . Sociology ofmorality . Émile Durkheim . Morality . Immanuel
Kant As a theme, morality was given a privileged status by the founders of sociology, particularly in the works of Max Weber and Émile Durkheim. Although they rebelled against the social philosophy of their time, by committing themselves to establishing the parameters of a scientific analysis of social reality, Weber and Durkheim also proved to be heirs of this long tradition, which covers all the questions of what is considered to be ‘practical philosophy,’ in other words, the formulation of answers to the question ‘how should we live?’ Their intention was not to replace philosophy in its quest for answers, but to understand how values − in the case of Weber − and moral rules and ideals − in the case of Durkheim − are socially constituted and what their role is in shaping social life.
* Jayme Gomes Neto [email protected] Raquel Weiss [email protected]
1
Department of Sociology, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil
The American Sociologist
Despite the centrality of this theme in classical sociology, and although some of Durkheim’s most direct disciples − such as Lucien Levy-Bruhl and Célestin Bouglé − devoted great attention to the subject, for decades morality did not become a field of study within sociology. This scenario has been transformed only in the last few years, with a series of initiatives that seek to constitute the field of “sociology of morality”(Cf. Abend 2008; Hitlin and Vaisey 2010) in different countries and from distinct perspectives, or even to establish a “moral sociology”, understood not just as a new branch within sociology, but as a general perspective – crossing along the various sociological fields – that allows us to highlight the moral content of social life (Vandenberghe 2016). In France, Luc Boltanski, together with Michael Pollak and Laurent Thévenot founded, in the 1980’s, the Groupe de sociologie politique et morale, at the É
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