Moral action as social capital, moral thought as cultural capital

Abstract

This paper explores the idea that moral thought/reasoning and moral actions are actually two separate phenomena that have little relationship to each other. The idea that moral thinking does or can control moral action creates a difficult dualism between our knowledge about morality and our everyday actions. These differences run parallel to the distinction between social capital and cultural capital—where social capital is based on cooperation and trust and leads to purposeful solutions to real time social problems and cultural capital serves as a shorthand sign that certain individuals should be recognized as accepted members of an ongoing community. Social capital and cultural capital, like moral action and moral thought, are related and sometimes even dependent on each other, but they are different phenomena sometimes working towards different purposes. We suggest that moral action is actually a form and an originating source of social capital and moral thought is an important form of cultural capital in many social groups. The differences between moral action and moral thought can lead to social tensions—including which is more valuable and how each should be approached in terms of education. John Dewey suggested that morality is tied to active engagement in the solving of a community’s problems and should be integrated into the everyday activities of the classroom. Those who view morality through more of a cultural capital lens often times see morality as a stable set of social values—an important resource that needs to be transmitted between generations.

Notes

1. Moral thinking falls within the larger cognitive development of social thinking/perspective taking (Damon, 1977). The more advanced the level of perspective taking the greater the possibilities for advanced moral thinking.

2. We understand the difficulties so many have in introducing a new phrase (that cannot be found in spell check or Wikipedia). However we really feel there is no current word or phrase that fits our needs. We want to argue that justice is a form of cultural capital—that it is transmitted to the individual by the larger society and becomes a critical symbol in establishing membership in the community. What is important in establishment and maintenance of the relationship is not the situation but the justice that overlays it. Justice‐centric is, in many ways, at the opposite end of the moral decision‐making spectrum from relativism.

3. Dewey (1934) has also used James’ metaphor of a bird in flight, landing on branches when necessary and then using that branch as a launching pad to continue the journey.

4. For a gross example—if we predetermine that the earth is flat or that the earth is at the centre of the universe, then this is going to determine our solution for navigation problems. If Antigone predetermines that she must offer a respectable burial for her brother no matter what the circumstances, then the dye is cast.

5. Kohlberg actually saw Dewey as something as a forerunner of his socio‐cognitive stage theory (Eddy, 1988). He focuses on a quote from Dewey concerning the development of stages of thinking through experience. We would make the argument (along with others [Carlin, 1981; Eddy, 1988]) that Kohlberg was taking Dewey out of context of his larger theory.

6. We believe terrorism serves as a prime example of this idea. Throughout history ‘terrorism’ has been a pluralistic activity, conducted by many different individuals in many different situations. This means there should be many different possible solutions to the problems of terrorism. By making a moral judgement about terrorism based on some justice‐centric system—prior to engaging the problem—can lead to a solution that does not deal with the issue at hand or the end in view. Self‐identity can become so tied up with identity that actors lose the ability to achieve positive consequences.

7. A metaphor that Dewey has used to explain this is a brick in building a house. On the one hand the brick can be viewed as a separate entity, but once it is used in the actual building of a house (experience) it is interdependent with all other bricks in the building process.

8. This may be one of the reasons that (at least for Dewey) the physical and biological sciences are so much more advanced in exploring experiential relationships with the world than the social sciences (Dewey & Bentley, 1949).

9. Warranted assertability exists on a continuum and, again, is related to our relationship with nature. When it comes to mathematical or physical concepts our relationship with nature is relatively stable. When relationships with nature become more dynamic, the level of warranted assertability goes down.

10. Perspective on action is critical to the Pragmatist worldview. William James (1907) made the early argument that truth is based on the perspective a person takes on action. Shared meaning develops through overlapping perspectives.

11. This raises a controversial issue—if an action you take with good intentions has negative consequences you did not expect, you are still morally responsible for those consequences. This argument was made by Randolph Bourne—John Dewey’s student—when Bourne (1992) criticised Dewey for supporting the United States entry into World War I. Dewey claimed to support entry in to the war because he believed that an allied victory would bring a chance for democratisation of the European continent. Bourne argued that Dewey was not following his own Pragmatic philosophy. War opened up too many possibilities for negative consequences to be a worthwhile activity. Humans who engaged in war were morally responsible for their negative consequences no matter what the intention.

12. Pepper (1942) criticised Dewey (1939) for this idea of progressive instrumentality, and we believe this was one of his reasons for having a section on both contextualism and organicism in his World Hypotheses.

13. This may be the most critical aspect of a Deweyan, process‐oriented approach to moral problem solving. Jane Addams (1985) suggested that social problems must be approached and solved within the community—where all those involved in ‘inquiry’ in to the problem see themselves as equal participants. It was one of the major reasons for the development of the Settlement House movement, where all social problem work was conducted at residences within the community.

14. When you are told it is in the best interests of society to go to war, negative consequences are unintended and separate from actions. When you decide to engage in an experiment where war is an instrument, there is no such thing as unintended consequence—the experimenter is responsible for the experiment.

15. Freud (1975) had a much darker, but similar, view of why humans are so open to leaders and objects that establish codes of conduct—they ameliorate much of the anxiety that we feel living in society about doing the right thing and not being judged as somehow deficient (at least at the superego level).