Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface and acknowledgements
- 1 Introduction
- 2 From the habitus to ethical dispositions
- 3 Recognition and distribution
- 4 Concepts of class: clearing the ground
- 5 Struggles of the social field
- 6 Moral and immoral sentiments and class
- 7 Responses to class I: egalitarianism, respect(ability), class pride and moral boundary drawing
- 8 Responses to class II: explanations, justifications and embarrassment
- 9 Conclusions and implications
- Bibliography
- Index
6 - Moral and immoral sentiments and class
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface and acknowledgements
- 1 Introduction
- 2 From the habitus to ethical dispositions
- 3 Recognition and distribution
- 4 Concepts of class: clearing the ground
- 5 Struggles of the social field
- 6 Moral and immoral sentiments and class
- 7 Responses to class I: egalitarianism, respect(ability), class pride and moral boundary drawing
- 8 Responses to class II: explanations, justifications and embarrassment
- 9 Conclusions and implications
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Introduction
We are evaluative beings. Our streams of consciousness have an evaluative dimension which ranges from spontaneous, unexamined, unarticulated feelings about other people, objects and practices, and about what to do, through to more considered evaluations of those things (Archer, 2003). As we argued in chapter 2, emotions or sentiments should be taken seriously as they often provide highly sensitive evaluative judgements of circumstances bearing upon people's well-being and what they care about (Nussbaum, 2001). In using the term evaluation I shall henceforth stretch it beyond its normal scope to encompass the whole of this range. The intensity of these responses also ranges from the subtlest differences in ease or unease, preferences and aversions, through to strong identification and approval or revulsion and disapproval. They are central to the subjective experience of class and it is the purpose of this chapter to examine their normative structures.
In dealing with forms of inequality such as those of class, or gender or ‘race’, it is customary to focus on phenomena such as snobbery and elitism, sexism, racism, contempt, disgust, ‘othering’, and the like, that is, on sentiments and practices which are in various ways oppressive, immoral or, in more old-fashioned language, vices. This is understandable given social science's emphasis on the study of social problems; indeed, many – myself included – would have doubts about the point of social research that did not deal with social problems of some sort.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Moral Significance of Class , pp. 139 - 168Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2005