Social Ethics:
- Based on her goal of ameliorating social inequality and bringing
about social change
- Believed that social ethic was needed as a prevailing principle of
conduct in society
- Her theories were highly grounded in her experiences and
observations at Hull House and Progressive activism and were
written to be accessible
Major Themes:
1. The work of a sociologist is to analyze the situation at hand in order
to bring about ameliorative social change in the world
- 2 epistemological statements (epistemology is the standpoint of
what counts as knowledge vs. opinion)
- The knowledge of social life can only be gained by direct social
experience
- That the knower is responsible toward the subject and situation as
they became known
- Must not lose the subject’s viewpoint in the sociological account
- Emphasized relationship between researchers and the subject
2. Method of doing theory is to report and analyze the situation at
hand as a narrative of multiple vantage points
- Emphasized that individual actors are situated within their own
experiences, these experiences are grounded in personal history
and that individuals give meaning to actions
- Used narratives of individual people or of the people who shared
different histories and intersections of “biography and history” in
order to reflect on the differences of vantage points
3. The individual social behavior is an embodied, agentic subjectivity,
motivated by interests and ethics
- Based on her goal of ameliorating social inequality and bringing
about social change
- Believed that social ethic was needed as a prevailing principle of
conduct in society
- Her theories were highly grounded in her experiences and
observations at Hull House and Progressive activism and were
written to be accessible
Major Themes:
1. The work of a sociologist is to analyze the situation at hand in order
to bring about ameliorative social change in the world
- 2 epistemological statements (epistemology is the standpoint of
what counts as knowledge vs. opinion)
- The knowledge of social life can only be gained by direct social
experience
- That the knower is responsible toward the subject and situation as
they became known
- Must not lose the subject’s viewpoint in the sociological account
- Emphasized relationship between researchers and the subject
2. Method of doing theory is to report and analyze the situation at
hand as a narrative of multiple vantage points
- Emphasized that individual actors are situated within their own
experiences, these experiences are grounded in personal history
and that individuals give meaning to actions
- Used narratives of individual people or of the people who shared
different histories and intersections of “biography and history” in
order to reflect on the differences of vantage points
3. The individual social behavior is an embodied, agentic subjectivity,
motivated by interests and ethics
