Abstract
Morality and power are often taken to be opposites, with morality grounded in altruism and a commitment of the common good, and power located in self-interest. Our contention is that moral power, seemingly an oxymoron, is actually a widely present and important factor in social and political life. Moral power is the degree to which an actor, by virtue of his or her perceived moral stature, is able to persuade others to adopt a particular belief or take a particular course of action. We argue that moral power is a function of whether one is perceived as morally well-intentioned, morally capable, and whether one has moral standing to speak to an issue. In this chapter, we introduce the concept of moral power, situate it theoretically, offer a theory of how it is generated, and give a range of examples to illustrate its relevance.
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Notes
- 1.
Michael Crowley, “Just Like Bush,” June 4, 2009, The New Republic. Accessed online at: http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=770a874d-9279-4cda-b0e4-2fd0533b07b6.
- 2.
There is some overlap with what Joseph Nye has called soft power, but moral power is a distinct concept. Nye (2004: x) defines soft power as “the ability to get what you want through attraction rather than coercion or payments.” Nye, a foreign relations scholar whose interest is in the power of nations, argues that the “soft power of a country rests primarily on three resources: its culture…, its political values…, and its foreign policies” (Nye 2004: 11). The more outsiders are attracted to America on those various dimensions, argues Nye, the greater the nation’s soft power. Moral power is thus a more specific concept than soft power: soft power refers to the range of attributes that might attract another to do one’s bidding; moral power is focused on the degree to which one’s moral status and standing affect one’s ability to sway others. Moral power can contribute to soft power, but soft power need not rest on a moral basis. As Nye (2004: 17) writes, “Much of American soft power has been produced by Hollywood, Harvard, Microsoft, and Michael Jordan.”
- 3.
There are some similarities here to Fligstein’s (2001) notion of social skill, in that both ideas are about creating cooperation among actors. However, social skill seems to be more highly rooted in understanding, shaping, and responding to the needs and preferences of other actors, while moral power is more about how actors’ moral status affects their abilities to get others to follow their lead.
- 4.
An actor could be an individual, organization, or corporate actors more generally.
- 5.
See Adams, Clemens, and Orloff (2005).
- 6.
This chapter is intended to investigate moral power; it is not intended to an exhaustively catalogue different types of power. See Lukes (2005) for one such attempt.
- 7.
Jodi Wilgoren, “Wendy Kopp, The Leader of Teach for America,” New York Times, November 12, 2000.
- 8.
We also offer a more specific account of the sources of moral power than Weber does of the sources of charismatic authority; see the next section on components of moral power.
- 9.
Presumably moral power could also matter at the level of the first or second dimension of power; actors who are perceived to have moral power can also have influence on how debates are decided or what is on the agenda.
- 10.
We also assume that people’s sense of morality may be affected explicitly or implicitly. For example, Martin Luther King was able to persuade many that blacks should have the same political rights as whites. This would be explicit influence. A prominent, charitable member of a community might influence others to be charitable simply by example. This would be implicit influence.
- 11.
See Abbott (1988) on the importance of diagnosis as key to skilled practice within a domain.
- 12.
We discuss this further in the section below on uses of moral power.
- 13.
At that point the Ten Point ministers participated in a study of racial profiling being carried out by a Northeastern University faculty member that was highly critical of police behavior (Berrien et al. 2000).
- 14.
This was particularly true of the National Education Association, and less true of the American Federation of Teachers. The NEA is the larger and more powerful of the two unions. See Mehta (2006) for details.
- 15.
See Mehta (2006) for details.
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Acknowledgments
We would like to thank Gabriel Abend, Wayne Baker, Nicola Beisel, Neil Gross, Steven Hitlin, Jennifer Hochschild, Steven Lukes, Jane Mansbridge, Brian Steensland, attendees of the Inquiries in the Sociology of Morality session at the International Institute of Sociology World Congress in Budapest. And also the participants at the Harvard Culture and Social Analysis workshop and the National Science Foundation Conference on the Sociology of Morality for their helpful comments and suggestions.
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Mehta, J., Winship, C. (2010). Moral Power. In: Hitlin, S., Vaisey, S. (eds) Handbook of the Sociology of Morality. Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-6896-8_22
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