Citation

Tavory I. Socio. Theor. 2011; 29(4): 272-293.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2011, American Sociological Association, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/j.1467-9558.2011.01400.x

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This article develops a research position that allows cultural sociologists to compare morality across sociohistorical cases. In order to do so, the article suggests focusing analytic attention on actions that fulfill the following criteria: (a) actions that define the actor as a certain kind of socially recognized person, both within and across fields; (b) actions that actors experience--or that they expect others to perceive--as defining the actor both intersituationally and to a greater extent than other available definitions of self; and (c) actions to which actors either have themselves, or expect others to have, a predictable emotional reaction. Such a position avoids both a realist moral sociology and descriptive-relativism, and provides sociologists with criteria for comparing moral action in different cases while staying attuned to social and historical specificity.

Language: en