Why Things Matter to People
Social Science, Values and Ethical Life

Andrew Sayer suggests how social science can better understand people's concerns and values, especially their ethical sentiments and dispositions.

Andrew Sayer (Author)

9780521171649, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 20 January 2011

296 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm, 0.48 kg

'Sayer's book is to be lauded for returning social theory to fundamental humanistic principles of shared basic needs and concerns for well-being. At the present time of economic crisis and austerity measures, a stronger sociological engagement with basic human cares and concerns is much to be welcomed.' E. Stina Lyon, Sociology

Andrew Sayer undertakes a fundamental critique of social science's difficulties in acknowledging that people's relation to the world is one of concern. As sentient beings, capable of flourishing and suffering, and particularly vulnerable to how others treat us, our view of the world is substantially evaluative. Yet modernist ways of thinking encourage the common but extraordinary belief that values are beyond reason, and merely subjective or matters of convention, with little or nothing to do with the kind of beings people are, the quality of their social relations, their material circumstances or well-being. The author shows how social theory and philosophy need to change to reflect the complexity of everyday ethical concerns and the importance people attach to dignity. He argues for a robustly critical social science that explains and evaluates social life from the standpoint of human flourishing.

Preface and acknowledgements
1. Introduction: a relation to the world of concern
2. Values within reason
3. Reason beyond rationality: values and practical reason
4. Beings for whom things matter
5. Understanding the ethical dimension of life
6. Dignity
7. Critical social science and its rationales
8. Implications for social science
Appendix: comments on philosophical theories of ethics
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Social, group or collective psychology [JMH], Social theory [JHBA], Social issues & processes [JFF], Social & political philosophy [HPS], Ethics & moral philosophy [HPQ]