Sociology 303
Sociological Theory
Fall 2003
Dr Scott SchafferFinal Paper Assignment: Constructing Prescriptive Social Theory
Due Date: This paper is due on Tuesday Dec 9/2003 at 302pm. Absolutely no late papers will be accepted for any reason without prior arrangement (made no later than M Dec 8 at 12noon), a compelling reason, and overwhelming evidence. Failure to submit your paper to me by one of the approved means by the due date and time will result in a 0 for this assignment, and a D in the course.
Guidelines: This paper is to be a minimum of 10 (ten) pages in length. Any paper shorter than this length will lose one-third letter grade per page it is short. Your paper must be typed, double-spaced, on 8 1/2” by 11” paper in 10- or 12-point font, with 1 1/4” left and right margins and 1” top and bottom margins. You must have a cover page with your name, a creative title (“Final Paper Assignment” is simply not creative enough), and any other pertinent information; your name should not appear anywhere else in the paper.
Your paper absolutely must be spell- and grammar-checked and proofread; any paper that is not “clean” will automatically lose one full letter grade. If you want your paper returned to you, please attach a self-addressed stamped envelope; if you only want to receive notification of your final grade, you can either attach a grade card or put your e-mail address on the front cover of the paper. Direct quotations are allowed for this paper, though they should be used judiciously (i.e., only when the quotation directly supports your argument) and must follow the format described in the paper-writing handout. All references to the material must be cited; failure to cite all references will result in between a one-third letter grade and a full letter grade deduction. Anything that appears as academically dishonest will be treated as such, meaning that any sanction from an “F” on this paper to an “F” in the course and referral to the proper authorities for disciplinary action will be applied.
The Topic: For this paper, you must utilize all five authors discussed in class (Berlin, Weber, Durkheim, Marx, and Simmel) in the development of your argument and in support of your claims. Failure to do so will result in a one-third letter grade deduction per author your paper is short.
You are to write a well-argued paper that responds clearly and directly to the following question.
To your mind, what would a “just society” be, and how would you bring it about?
In the writing of this paper, you must do the following things in the order shown in the outline below. This bulleted list constitutes the basis for my evaluation of this paper:
· Detail your conception of justice using the versions of justice outlined on page 3 of this handout;
· Using Berlin’s definition of both negative liberty and positive freedom, discuss the appropriate impact of the social structure upon the individual and the appropriate degree of individual agency (and what types of actions would be appropriate) in your just society, making sure that you detail how these conceptions derive from or contradict the authors you choose to utilize in your argument. You also need to discuss how both forms of freedom appear in or are created by the economy and systems of monetary relations in your just society, how it can be used by individuals and by structures, and how it is distributed. In other words, talk about exactly what the acceptable limitations on negative liberty and the extent of positive freedom would be in your society;
· Detail the process by which you would bring about your just society, i.e. what kinds of policies you would develop in the creation of your just society, as well as the ways in which those changes would bring into existence your conception of justice;
· Ensure that your conception of justice, your statements on the makeup of the economic order, and your argument about the just society match your understanding of the authors you use, and be sure that your versions of structure and agency are consistent with both the authors you use and your conception of justice;
· OR, if you believe our current society is “the just society,” make sure you develop an argument justifying your view of our society as just, utilizing the authors to discuss the current conception of justice (making sure to identify which conception of justice our society utilizes) as well as any adjustments you would make to our social order.
· Finally, you must make sure that your paper contains a coherent argument in which every paragraph relates to the topic and your argument and follows logically from the paragraph before it.
The Outline: In writing this paper, you should follow this sketch outline, using materials from the authors’ arguments to support your ideas where appropriate. Make sure that you fully detail the steps required to demonstrate these elements of your argument in a more complete outline, and then after completing the paper, “reverse outline” it to ensure that the intent and the result match:
I. Introduction – thesis statement should start with “In this paper, I will argue that a just society would be….”
II. Discussion of the current social order
III. Evaluation of current social order using your conception of justice – you must fully and completely detail your conception of justice, define all elements that go into the main principle by which you’d evaluate something as just, and develop criteria for that evaluation
IV. What your just society would look like – levels of analysis and both forms of freedom go here
V. How you’d get to your just society from here and how it meets your conception of justice
VI. How the means you’d use to get to your just society are just
VII. Closure – restate argument (as if it were a campaign speech)
Conceptions of Justice
PLEASE NOTE: These definitions of conceptions of justice leave out one important factor: the criteria by which individual actions and/or social policies are evaluated in terms of “just” or “unjust”. This is because these criteria are often the subject of hot philosophical debate; philosophers (and those whose social actions and/or policies embody philosophies) often utilize both different conceptions of justice and evaluation criteria to legitimate anything ranging from fascism to absolute freedom. I also leave their particular applications to your paper to you. Each conception of justice occurs in our society in different circumstances; it’s up to you to decide for yourself how things “should be.”
Deontological (universal) justice: A conception of justice that relies upon the first principle of duties or rights; in other words, justice occurs when someone obeys their duty (to themselves or to others) or acts in accordance with their rights or the rights of others, without regard for the consequences of their actions. The site of evaluation as to whether or not an act is just is in the intention – whether or not the consequences are good or bad, so long as one acts in accordance with their duty or their rights (or those of the individual toward whom they are acting). Example: From a deontological perspective, acting on one’s right to “free speech” would be just, regardless of whether or not the content of the speech or its results were just. Generally focuses primarily on the individual and their general (or universalized) context and an abstract conception of duty.
Teleological/consequentialist justice: The idea that justice’s site of evaluation is with the consequences of one’s actions; if the results are just, then the action is just. Examples range from Machiavelli’s “the ends justify the means” to governmental justifications for the death penalty. Often focuses upon the maintenance of a social order as a primary good, or on the historical context of the situation under evaluation.
Distributive justice: The idea that justice is in the distribution of goods, services, rights, duties or freedoms. If the distribution is just, then regardless of the just-ness of what is distributed the social order is seen to be just. Usually utilized by those who would wish to see the proceeds of society redistributed, but can be used to justify punitive and/or repressive measures as well (i.e., “people get what they deserve” is just as valid as “From each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs” in this view).
Meritocratic justice: The idea that justice (especially in terms of societies characterized by different kinds of inequalities) depends on an individual’s ability to achieve what they are capable of achieving. In other words, if an individual is able to maximize their abilities, then regardless of the inequalities in the distribution of rewards the system is just.
Processual justice: The idea that justice occurs when a particular process by which “justice” is determined is followed. (In the US, we refer to it as “due process”; see the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution.) Regardless of the outcome of the process, if the particularities of the process are observed, the results are “just.”
“Content-based” justice: The idea (often in conjunction with another form of justice) that the particular application of criteria by which “justice” is determined should be based upon the content or the particularities of an individual’s and/or society’s circumstances. Often involves a sense of proportionality (i.e., does this action merit this response?), an idea of multiple causes for a single action, and (to some extent) a deferral of total individual responsibility onto the social order or to the historical situation.
On using the conceptions of justice:
These six conceptions of justice are those used by philosophers, social theorists, and others in evaluating the justness or unjustness of some particular form of society. The trick – in the same way that “the trick” with structure and agency was – is the content given to these concepts. What you’ve got here are the basic “sites of evaluation” of justice – where we would look in order to find out whether something is just or unjust. What we don’t have here is the “why” of this evaluative process.
That’s where you come in. First, you need to choose which of these conceptions of justice best reflects how you evaluate the justice of something. The best way to do this is to think about some thing that you find unjust and to figure out why it is that you find it unjust. Is it because it violates a universal principle? Because it doesn’t reflect someone’s merit? Or because of something particular to the situation in which it occurs? This will help you figure out which conception of justice you should use. Once you’ve got the conception of justice, then you need to figure out how you would know justice or injustice according to that conception. This means that, once again, you need to provide content or criteria to that conception. If something is unjust when it violates a universal principle, what universal principle is violated? If it’s because something doesn’t reflect someone’s merit, what would “merit” be? Et cetera. Only you can provide the appropriate criteria or content to these conceptions of justice – after all, the argument in this paper is supposed to reflect how you think about the world.
But this isn’t all. Once you’ve identified your idea of justice and the criteria by which you’d know something was just, you need to think about how you would bring about that version of justice in the world. The goal of this paper is to get you to write prescriptive social theory – to analyze the world, evaluate what goes on, and to say how things should be and how we can make them that way. As such, one of the key criteria by which your paper will be evaluated is how well you develop the prescriptive element of the paper and whether or not your prescription for changing the world matches or would bring about your idea of justice. You therefore need to make sure that the conception of justice, the end state or “ideal society,” and the process by which you get there are all in sync.
A Final Note:
Your task in this paper is to develop a prescriptive social theory by directly addressing the topic presented. You must focus on developing a clear, well-written argument for this assignment, one that works to clearly develop your idea of justice and conceives of some form of necessary social change. You may, in the process of writing this paper, utilize some current social problem as a way of getting into the development of your argument (in other words, to use descriptive theory). No outside research is required for this paper, but you may consider using some academic journal article as an entrée to your paper. In general, your job is to write this paper as if tomorrow the social world depended upon what you have to say in this paper. Pretend as if you are saving the world – that you’re a god, playing SimCity, or engaging in some other megalomaniacal pursuit. Write the paper as if you’re the only one speaking, and only use the authors to back up your ideas. They had their time – it’s yours now. Good luck – and have fun.