Maria Ossowska

Abstract

Maria Ossowska (1896–1974) was focused on the problem of a sociology of morality. At the time she was writing, a sociology of morals was not generally considered proper subject matter for moral philosophers. Yet ethics was already showing its weakness and calling out for a new reformulation. Maria Ossowska formulated a new project for moral philosophy involving a sociological perspective which not only understood ‘morality’ as a social phenomenon which could be researched with sociological methods, but which also understood itself as remaining inextricably related to philosophical reflection. She divided her new ‘moral science’ into three parts: (1) an analysis of moral evaluations and norms; (2) a psychology of morality; and (3) a sociology of morality. In developing this program, Ossowska worked upon various themes or areas, including the moral thought of the British Enlightenment, the chivalrous ethos and bourgeois morality. She introduced and newly reformulated the term ‘ethos’, intending it both as a term of sociology and as related to normative ethics, which is part of moral philosophy. Ossowska%'s most general achievement was to widen awareness in both philosophy and sociology of a new necessary complexity and depth to any moral studies.