Abstract
We argue that sociology students and their teachers could benefit from cultivating literacy in normative ethics, as well as from developing a thoughtful approach to ethical values and principles, an intellectual virtue that we label “conscious normativity.” The benefits of ethics literacy and conscious normativity include a deeper appreciation for the centrality of normative evaluations in social life, a renewed connection with many of the intellectual and ethical traditions that underpin sociology and society, and an enhanced ability to navigate the discipline’s inescapable plurality and to develop an informed position on the doctrine of value neutrality. We outline some ways in which students and their teachers could enhance their ethics literacy, focusing on the many points of contact between sociological practice and ethical reflection. The article concludes by considering the meaning of our argument for sociology’s relationship to ethics, highlighting the cycles of critique that become accessible to consciously normative sociologists.
Highlights
In this article, we invite sociologists and their students to engage with normative ethics
Taking the perspective of the normative turn, we argue that ethics literacy within sociology has multiple benefits, even for those who advocate some version of axiological neutrality
Against the background of Civic Sociology’s launch, we have argued that there is room and need for improving ethics literacy in sociology
Summary
We argue that sociology students and their teachers could benefit from cultivating literacy in normative ethics, as well as from developing a thoughtful approach to ethical values and principles, an intellectual virtue that we label “conscious normativity.” The benefits of ethics literacy and conscious normativity include a deeper appreciation for the centrality of normative evaluations in social life, a renewed connection with many of the intellectual and ethical traditions that underpin sociology and society, and an enhanced ability to navigate the discipline’s inescapable plurality and to develop an informed position on the doctrine of value neutrality. We argue that sociology students and their teachers could benefit from cultivating literacy in normative ethics, as well as from developing a thoughtful approach to ethical values and principles, an intellectual virtue that we label “conscious normativity.”. The benefits of ethics literacy and conscious normativity include a deeper appreciation for the centrality of normative evaluations in social life, a renewed connection with many of the intellectual and ethical traditions that underpin sociology and society, and an enhanced ability to navigate the discipline’s inescapable plurality and to develop an informed position on the doctrine of value neutrality. We outline some ways in which students and their teachers could enhance their ethics literacy, focusing on the many points of contact between sociological practice and ethical reflection. The article concludes by considering the meaning of our argument for sociology’s relationship to ethics, highlighting the cycles of critique that become accessible to consciously normative sociologists
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