A reconstructed approach to the sociology of morals illustrated with a study of conflict in a large, urban jail system.
Item
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Title
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A reconstructed approach to the sociology of morals illustrated with a study of conflict in a large, urban jail system.
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Identifier
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AAI9808006
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identifier
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9808006
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Creator
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Smith, Polly Ashton.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Robert Jay Lifton
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Date
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1997
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Sociology, Theory and Methods | Sociology, Criminology and Penology | Psychology, Social
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Abstract
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Durkheim's program for the sociological study of morality has been largely abandoned by American sociologists. The concept of morality has consequently been undertheorized in empirical sociological research and an unsupported moral relativism has been presupposed. In Part I, the history of this problem is traced to and analyzed in terms of Talcott Parsons' interpretation of Durkheim's formulation of the Hobbesian problem of order in The Structure of Social Action. Parsons misconstrued both Hobbes' and Durkheim's conceptualization of the sources and social implications of moral knowledge and developed a sociology of values that ignored any distinctions between moral and non-moral norms or rules. Ethnomethodology's constitutive model of rule-following is analyzed in terms of its application to moral deliberation, and a focus on "mundane morality" at work in everyday social interaction is proposed. A review of relevant literature in contemporary moral philosophy and moral psychology is undertaken in order to specify how social actors' moral deliberations may be identified by the sociological researcher.;Part II illustrates the theoretical approach developed in Part I through an analysis of conflict between members of various groups working and living in the New York City Department of Correction (NYC DOC). The method proposed and employed in the two empirical chapters is discourse analysis, which is applied to in-depth interviews conducted with DOC staff, inmates, and oversight agency representatives. The first empirical chapter focuses on how members describe and account for the social facts of the organization and identifies members' overriding concern with the moral failings of their colleagues. This concern is analyzed in terms of a pervasive historical problem with the legitimation of authority in the NYC DOC. The final chapter offers a paradigmatic case of how clashes between organizational social facts, moral facts, and context-contingent group norms are reconciled through a detailed analysis of one member's "narrative of moral reckoning." The status of the "don't rat" rule and its influence on correction officers is analyzed in terms of the project's broader argument about the characteristics of mundane morality.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
