The Denial of Virtue

When a New York City man risked his own life to save a stranger on the subway tracks, the New York Times interpreted his behavior not in terms of virtue but as a product of certain ‘hard-wiring’ he happened to possess. In denying virtue, the Times followed a school of thought that is pervasive in social science (referred to in this paper as the ‘individualists’) who, for example, explain charitable donations by pointing out tax deductions, explain volunteer work by revealing the opportunities contained therein to meet other singles, and so on. Actually, the assumptions and arguments which ground this widespread ‘denial of virtue’ are both empirically and normatively flawed, and the theory itself is belied by data about people doing good for moral reasons. Evidence drawn from personal introspection, from empirical studies of human behavior, from analysis of voting as a civil act, from interpreting peoples’ reaction to Alzheimer’s disease, from critical inspection of the logic of ‘individualist’ social explanations, and from a normative criticism of the products of the ‘individualist’ approach all support a rejection of the ‘individualist’ approach. The deniers of virtue should heed the evidence and pay mind to the amoralizing consequences of their erroneous theories.

Social science as a multicultural canon

He is the editor of The Responsive Community: Rights and Responsibilities,a new quarterly. His most recent book is The Moral Dimension.     

Making policy for complex systems: A medical model for economics

In recent years, policy analysts have shown a growing interest in less rationalistic policymaking models. Medical knowledge may be useful to consider in this regard, since it combines practical knowledge with the findings of numerous analytic disciplines, and includes procedures for dealing with high uncertainty. In contrast, economic policymaking often applies analysis from a single discipline directly to a multifaceted problem. A broader “socioeconomic” approach emulating the medical model would incorporate variables such as political, social, cultural, psychic, and environmental factors.     

The attack on community: The grooved debate

Before that, he served as Professor of Sociology at Columbia University. He was a White House advisor in the final year of the Carter Administration and is presently the president of the American Sociological Association. Among his best-known works are The Active Society; Public Policy in a New Key; Modern Organization; The Spirit of Community;and The Moral Dimension.