Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

Dual-Process Theories in Moral Psychology pp 271–295Cite as

Ethos, Eidos, Habitus A Social Theoretical Contribution to Morality and Ethics

  • Chapter
  • First Online:

Abstract

This essay sets out a practice theory perspective on morality and ethics within a Bourdieuan frame. The terms ethos and eidos are developed as field level accounts of morality – the normative character or structure of a society of culture – and ethics or, rather, the collective socio-logic of ethical thinking. I then discuss the idea that, consistent with Bourdieu’s social theory, social structures – such as ethos and eidos – are ontologically complicit with the systems of dispositions constitutive of habitus. Following my discussion of this idea – that the structures of habitus (systems of dispositions) stand in a homologous relationship with the structures of the social fields within which they were developed – I turn to some recent research in moral psychology. I attempt to show that the view I have outlined can assist us in understanding the picture of morality and ethics emerging from this scholarship.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD   54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  • Anon. Editorial. (2014). Characterology. Contemporary Sociology: A Journal of Reviews 43 (2), 149–154.

    Google Scholar 

  • Abend, G. (2010). What’s New and What’s Old about the New Sociology of Morality. In S. Hitlin & S. Vaisey (Eds.), Handbook of the Sociology of Morality (pp. 561–584). London, UK: Springer.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Abend, G. (2013). What the Science of Morality Doesn’t Say About Morality. Philosophy of the Social Sciences 43 (2), 157–200.

    Google Scholar 

  • Adams, M. (2006). Hybridizing Habitus and Reflexivity. Sociology 40(3), 511–528.

    Google Scholar 

  • Alfano, M. (2013). Character as Moral Fiction. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Anderson, A. (2005). The Way We Argue Now: A Study in the Cultures of Theory. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Archer, M.S. (2003). Structure, Agency and the Internal Conversation. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Bateson, G. (1958). Naven: A Survey of the Problems Suggested by a Composite Picture of the Culture of a New Guinea Tribe Drawn from Three Points of View. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bourdieu, P. (1993). Sociology in Question. London, UK: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bourdieu, P. (1977). Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Bourdieu, P. (1979). Public Opinion Does Not Exist. In A. Mattelart & S. Siegelau (Eds.), Communication and Class Struggle: An Anthology (pp. 124–130). New York, USA: International General.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bourdieu, P. (1981). Men and Machines. In K. Knorr-Cetina & A.V. Cicourel (Eds.), Advances in Social Theory and Methodology (pp. 304–317). London, UK: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bourdieu, P. (1992a). The Logic of Practice. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bourdieu, P. (1992b). Towards a Policy of Morality in Politics. In W.R. Shea & A. Spadafora (Eds.), From the Twilight of Probability. Canton: Science History Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bourdieu, P. (1996a). On the Family as a Realized Category. Theory Culture and Society 13 (3), 19–26.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bourdieu, P. (1996b). Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Reprint. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bourdieu, P. (1998). Practical Reason: On the Theory of Action. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bourdieu, P. (1999). Scattered Remarks. European Journal of Social Theory 2 (3), 334–340.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bourdieu, P. (2000). Pascalian Meditations. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bourdieu, P. (2002). Habitus. In J. Hillier & E. Rooksby (Eds), Habitus: A Sense of Place (pp. 43–49). Aldershot: Ashgate.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bourdieu, P., & Passeron, J.C. (2000). Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture. 2nd Edition. London, UK: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bourdieu, P., & Wacquant, L. (1992). An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brubaker, R. (1993). Social Theory as Habitus. In C. Calhoun, E. LiPuma, & M. Postone (Eds.), Bourdieu: Critical Perspectives (pp. 212–234). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Carlisle, C. (2013). The Question of Habit in Theology and Philosophy: From Hexis to Plasticity. Body & Society 19 (2–3), 30–57.

    Google Scholar 

  • Carlisle, C. (2010). Between Freedom and Necessity: Félix Ravaisson on Habit and the Moral Life. Inquiry 53 (2), 123–145.

    Google Scholar 

  • Christman, J. (2009). The Politics of Persons: Individual Autonomy and Socio-Historical Selves. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Cushman, F., Young, L. & Greene, J.D. (2010). Multi-System Moral Psychology. In J. Doris (Ed.), The Moral Psychology Handbook. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Daston, L., & Galison, P. (2007). Objectivity. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Doris, J.M. (2002). Lack of Character: Personality and Moral Behavior. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Edel, M., & Edel, A. (2000). Anthropology and Ethics: The Quest for Moral Understanding. London, UK: Transaction Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Emmerich, N. (2013). Medical Ethics Education: An Interdisciplinary and Social Theoretical Perspective. London, UK: Springer.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Emmerich, N. (2014). Bourdieu’s Collective Enterprise of Inculcation: The Moral Socialisation and Ethical Enculturation of Medical Students. British Journal of Sociology of Education, Online First.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fassin, D. (Ed.) (2012). A Companion to Moral Anthropology. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fassin, D., & Lézé, S. (Eds.) (2013). Moral Anthropology: A Critical Reader. London, UK: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Foucault, M. (2003). The Birth of the Clinic. New Ed. London, UK: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fuller, S. (2012). Precautionary and Proactionary as the New Right and the New Left of the Twenty-First Century Ideological Spectrum. International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society 25 (4), 157–174.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fuller, S., & Lipinska, V. (2014). The Proactionary Imperative: A Foundation for Transhumanism. London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Geertz, C. (1957). Ethos, World-View and the Analysis of Sacred Symbols. The Antioch Review 17 (4), 421.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gellner, E. (1992). Reason and Culture: A Sociological and Philosophical Study of the Role of Rationality and Rationalism. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gilligan, C. (1993). In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gregg, B. (2003). Thick Moralities, Thin Politics: Social Integration Across Communities of Belief. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Haidt, J. (2001). The Emotional Dog and Its Rational Tail: A Social Intuitionist Approach to Moral Judgment. Psychological Review 108(4), 814–834.

    Google Scholar 

  • Haidt, J. (2012). The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion. New York, NY: Pantheon.

    Google Scholar 

  • Haidt, J., Bjorklund, F. & Murphy, S. (2000). Moral Dumbfounding: When Intuition Finds No Reason. Unpublished Manuscript, University of Virginia. http://commonsenseatheism.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Haidt-Moral-Dumfounding-When-Intuition-Finds-No-Reason.pdf

  • Hämäläinen, N. (2009). Is Moral Theory Harmful in Practice? – Relocating Anti-Theory in Contemporary Ethics. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 12(5), 539–553.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harman, G. (2009). Skepticism about Character Traits. The Journal of Ethics 13 (2–3), 235–242.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hitlin, S., & Vaisey, S. (Eds.) (2010). Handbook of the Sociology of Morality. London, UK: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ignatow, G. (2009). Why the Sociology of Morality Needs Bourdieu’s Habitus. Sociological Inquiry 79 (1), 98–114.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jenkins, R. (1982). Pierre Bourdieu and the Reproduction of Determinism. Sociology 16(2), 270–278.

    Google Scholar 

  • Johnson, M. (2014). Morality for Humans: Ethical Understanding from the Perspective of Cognitive Science. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, Fast and Slow. London: Penguin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kleinman, A. (1995). Writing at the Margin: Discourse between Anthropology and Medicine. Berkley, USA: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Knobe, J. (2003). Intentional Action and Side Effects in Ordinary Language. Analysis 63 (3), 190–194.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kohlberg, L. (1981). Essays on Moral Development. Vol. 1. San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kolodny, N. (1996). The Ethics of Cryptonormativism: A Defense of Foucault’s Evasions. Philosophy & Social Criticism 22 (5), 63–84.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kroeber, A.L. (1963). Anthropology. New York, NY: Harcourt, Brace & World.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kukla, R. (2014a). Living with Pirates: Common Morality and Embodied Practice. Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 23 (1), 75–85.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kukla, R. (2014b). Response to Strong and Beauchamp: At World’s End. Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 23 (1), 99–103.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lahire, B. (2010). The Plural Actor. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Laidlaw, J. (2013). The Subject of Virtue: An Anthropology of Ethics and Freedom. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Lizardo, O. (2004). The Cognitive Origins of Bourdieu’s Habitus. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 34 (4), 375–401.

    Google Scholar 

  • Luke, H. (2003). Medical Education and Sociology of Medical Habitus: “It’s Not About the Stethoscope!” Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lynch, M. (2001). Ethnomethodology and the Logic of Practice. In T.R. Schatzki, K. Knorr-Cetina, & E. von Savigny (Eds.), The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory (pp. 131–48). London, UK: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Madge, C. (1964). Society in the Mind: Elements of Social Eidos. London, UK: Faber & Faber.

    Google Scholar 

  • Martin, P.J., & Dennis, A. (Eds.) (2010). Human Agents and Social Structures. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Meisenhelder, T. (2006). From Character to Habitus in Sociology. The Social Science Journal 43 (1), 55–66.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mol, A. (2008). The Logic of Care: The Problem of Patient Choice. London, UK: Routledge. Nederman, C. J. (1989). Nature, Ethics, and the Doctrine of ‘Habitus’: Aristotelian Moral Psychology in the Twelfth Century. Traditio 45: 87–110.

    Google Scholar 

  • Noble, G., & Watkins, M. (2003). So, How Did Bourdieu Learn To Play Tennis? Habitus, Consciousness and Habituation. Cultural Studies 17 (3), 520–539.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pettit, D., & Knobe, J. (2009). The Pervasive Impact of Moral Judgment. Mind & Language 24 (5), 586–604.

    Google Scholar 

  • Polanyi, M. (2009). The Tacit Dimension. Reissue. Chicago, USA: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ravaisson, F. (2008). Of Habit. (trans. C. Carlisle & M. Sinclair). London, UK: Continuum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Reay, D. (2004). ‘It’s All Becoming a Habitus’: Beyond the Habitual Use of Habitus in Educational Research. British Journal of Sociology of Education 25 (4), 431–444.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rust, J, & Schwitzgebel, E. (2013). The Moral Behavior of Ethicists and the Power of Reason. In H. Sarkissian & J. Wright (Eds.), Advances in Experimental Moral Psychology (pp. 91–109). London, UK: Bloomsbury Academic.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sayer, A. (2010). Reflexivity and the Habitus. In M.S. Archer (Ed.), Conversations about Reflexivity (pp. 108–22). London, UK: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schüklenk, U., & Pacholczyk, A. (2010). Dignity’s Wooly Uplift. Bioethics 24 (2), ii.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schwitzgebel, E. (2009). Do Ethicists Steal More Books? Philosophical Psychology 22 (6), 711–725.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schwitzgebel, E. (2013). Do Ethics Classes Influence Student Behavior? University of California, Riverside. http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/SchwitzAbs/EthicsClasses.htm

  • Schwitzgebel, E, & Cushman, F. (2012). Expertise in Moral Reasoning? Order Effects on Moral Judgment in Professional Philosophers and Non-Philosophers. Mind & Language 27 (2), 135–153.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schwitzgebel, E., & Rust, J. (2009). The Moral Behaviour of Ethicists: Peer Opinion. Mind 118(472), 1043–1059.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schwitzgebel, E., & Rust, J. (2010). Do Ethicists and Political Philosophers Vote More Often Than Other Professors? Review of Philosophy and Psychology 1(2), 189–199.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schwitzgebel, E., & Rust, J. (Forthcoming). The Moral Behaviour of Ethicists. In J. Sytsma & W. Buckwalter (Eds.), Blackwell Companion to Experimental Philosophy. http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/SchwitzAbs/EthBehBlackwell.htm

  • Sfard, A. (2010). Thinking as Communicating: Human Development, the Growth of Discourses, and Mathematizing. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sinclair, S. (1997). Making Doctors: An Institutional Apprenticeship. Oxford, UK: Berg Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smith, R. (2007). Being Human: Historical Knowledge and the Creation of Human Nature. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sripada, C.S., & Konrath, S. (2011). Telling More Than We Can Know About Intentional Action. Mind & Language 26 (3), 353–380.

    Google Scholar 

  • Strauss, C., & Quinn, N. (1998). A Cognitive Theory of Cultural Meaning. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Taylor, C. (1993). To Follow a Rule. In C. Calhoun, E. LiPuma, & M. Postone (Eds.), Bourdieu:Critical Perspectives (pp. 45–60). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Thompson, P. (2012). Field. In M. Grenfell (Ed.), Pierre Bourdieu: Key Concepts, 2nd Ed. (pp. 67–81). Stocksfield, UK: Acumen Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Toulmin, S.E. (1972). Human Understanding. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wittgenstein, L. (2009). Philosophical Investigations. 4th Ed. Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Webber, J. (2006). Virtue, character and situation. Journal of Moral Philosophy 3(2), 193–213.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wolff, J. (1998). Fairness, Respect, and the Egalitarian Ethos. Philosophy & Public Affairs 27(2), 97–122.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zahle, J. (2013). Practices and the Direct Perception of Normative States: Part I. Philosophy of the Social Sciences 43(4), 493–518.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zahle, J. (2014). Practices and the Direct Perception of Normative States: Part II. Philosophy of the Social Sciences 44(1), 74–85.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zigon, J. (2008). Morality: An Anthropological Perspective. Oxford, UK: Berg.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Visiting Research Fellow, School of Politics, International Studies and Philosophy, Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast, U.K.

    Nathan Emmerich

Authors
  1. Nathan Emmerich
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Nathan Emmerich .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. IZEW, Universität Tübingen, Tübingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany

    Cordula Brand

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2016 Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Emmerich, N. (2016). Ethos, Eidos, Habitus A Social Theoretical Contribution to Morality and Ethics. In: Brand, C. (eds) Dual-Process Theories in Moral Psychology. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-12053-5_13

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation