Week 2: Assignment 04/10/2017

Weekly Activities

Here is what you will be doing this week:

• Review last week's Chapter 1 in the text: Introduction to Ethics and Social Responsibility

• Review last week's Chapter 2 in the text: Ethical Questions in the Public Square

• Read Chapter 8 in the text: The Environment

• Read the article “Environmental Justice for All” by Leyla Kokmen, from Utne Reader (2008)

• Post to Discussion Board 1 on The Three Ethical Perspectives (due by Day 3, Thursday)

• Post to Discussion Board 2 on Constructing Arguments (due by Day 3, Thursday)

• Respond to two discussion posts by classmates in each discussion (by Day 7, Monday)

• Assignment: Applying Theory: Environmental Issues, PowerPoint slideshow (due by Day 7, Monday)

Ethics, Responsibility and Society

This week we take up the issue of individual rights, and how individual rights are mediated by the responsibilities we have to the social well-being―which includes both our responsibilities to other individuals who we interact with and our responsibilities to the collective good, or the well-being of everyone together. As is often noted, every right implies a responsibility; without responsibilities rights are essentially unenforceable, because in exercising individual rights, people would always be infringing on the rights of others, thereby negating the others’ rights. So, we can see that the concept of responsibility links ethics to society, since our ethical responsibilities provide guidelines for behavior as we interact with others.

As noted in the reading for this week, regardless of which theory of ethics you use, if we apply ethical standards we have the means to find moral solutions to difficult and often intractable problems. This begs the question, what do we mean by moral? To many, moral simply means doing what is right (which of course simply creates a different question: what is right?) Others would say moral is doing what is just or fair. Some look to religion for guidance to understand what is moral. Others search philosophical texts for principles of morality.

Sociologists would argue that morality is a social construct (Etzioni, 1993; Taylor, 1991). The criteria we use for assessing morality revolve around the idea of the common or social good. Something is moral if it serves the interests of everybody, rather than the interests of specific individuals or groups. Morality is therefore reflected in society.

What is the “Common Good?”

Morality is tied to the common or collective good, but what do we mean by the “common good?”

Emile Durkheim, one of the founders of the discipline of Sociology, developed a concept that he called social facts. Today, some sociologists use the term emergent properties in a similar way. According to Durkheim (1895/1982), social facts are “a category of facts with very distinctive characteristics: it consists of acting, thinking, and feeling, external to the individual, and endowed with a power of coercion, by reason of which they control him” (p. 52). Durkheim argued that “it is to them exclusively that the term ‘social’ ought to be applied.”

So, essentially, what Durkheim is saying is that society is its own entity; it has its own form and its own reality. It is not merely the sum of all the individuals who comprise a society―it is more than this. It is the product (or entity) that emerges when people interact. And often, what is good for individuals is not good for society, or vice versa. Taxes provide an easy illustration of this idea. To any individual, paying taxes is harmful, in that it reduces each person’s overall income. Yet, if everyone pays taxes, taxes provide many social goods, some tangible (e.g., schools, roads, police) and some intangible (e.g., leadership, rules, defense). All of these benefit everyone together, and increase the social welfare.

The concept of social facts can help us understand the social nature of morality. If we think of morality as a social concept, then to say something is moral implies that it possesses the properties of a social fact. Morality refers to what is good for everyone together (Bellah, Madsen, Sullivan, Swidler, & Tipton, 1991). Morals provide a set of guidelines for behavior that maintains the common good. Like social facts, morality is a form of social control; by setting guidelines, morals channel people’s behavior into actions that are “right,” and provide the justification for punishing those who engage in behavior that is “wrong.” Morality, the common good, is represented by ethics, which offer individuals the means to access and apply moral principles in their daily lives. Most importantly, ethics offer guidelines for behavior in challenging or ambiguous situations.

Just like ethical principles, moral guidelines may not always be clear cut. Different groups have different senses of what is moral, and morality may change over time. Moreover, there may be conflicts among different social institutions over what is moral. Churches, governments, families and businesses may express conflicting views of morality, and may act in different ways depending on their definitions of morality. However, in all cases morality has a unifying characteristic: it is a socially constructed fact which is embedded in social structures, and which defines the common good.

Here are some videos which may help you understand these concepts further and also help with the assignments this week...

References:

Bellah, R. N., Madsen, R., Sullivan, W. M., Swidler, A., & Tipton, A. M. (1991). The good society. New York: Vintage Books.

Durkheim, E. (1895/1982). The rules of sociological method. New York: The Free Press.

Etzioni, A. (1993). The spirit of community: Rights, responsibilities and the communitarian agenda. New York: Crown Publishers.

Taylor, C. (1991). The ethics of authenticity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.