Revising - PowerPoint Presentation

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Revising social work ethics:Lessons from Adam Ferguson and the Scottish Enlightenment 

David

McKendrick and Stephen A. Webb

Glasgow Caledonian University, ScotlandSlide2

Why focus on the Scottish Enlightenment? Setting the context and the relevance of Adam Ferguson Ferguson, commercialism and the concept of exploitation Ferguson's civic virtue and magnanimitySlide3

The Scottish Enlightenment tradition adds a line of trajectory and critical insights as well as historical texture, to several key issues which relate to social work ethics that should necessitate serious engagement. Slide4

"Despite critical differences between them, differences which have if anything been under-appreciated, I argue that the philosophers of the Scottish Enlightenment were unified by the commitment to human betterment in this world as the measure of progress, and to investigating the conditions of its achievement“ (Robertson, 1997)Slide5

Rousseau’s locution: Scottish social science spoke incessantly ofvirtue and liberty whereas others spokemainly of utility.Slide6

In Scotland between the years 1750 and1790, in the work of Adam Smith, AdamFerguson, John Millar, and to a lesserextent, the historian William Robertson, aremarkably modern sociological treatment ofsociety and its institutions emerged, atradition which was largely forgotten andignored by the nineteenth century.Slide7

The irony is that this sociological treatmentof society and its institutions should havebeen rejected by nineteenth-century socialtheorists in favour of organicism and thetheory of progress. The true heirs of theScottish sociological tradition became thesocialists and Marx.Slide8

This bridging of traditions in Ferguson isused as a device here to reproduce thesetwo related sides which reflect the contoursof social work ethics: Firstly, an emphasison civic virtue as informed by moralphilosophy and secondly, the influence oftheoretical sociology of structural power,exploitation and relations of dominationSlide9

Ferguson was resigned to the fact that thedivision of labour was an inevitablecontingency of the continuity of progressSlide10

Forms of government,” Ferguson tells us,“take their rise, chiefly from the manner inwhich the members of a state have beenoriginally classed.”Slide11

Brewer (1986) (i) exploitation is understood as economicexploitation; (ii) it is approached through the notion ofhuman agency; (iii) and the discussion of exploitation isintegrally linked to an ethical concern aboutIts injustice.Slide12

It has been said that ‘Ferguson’s pages onthe division of labour are a minor triumph ofeighteenth century sociology’ (Peter Gay,The Enlightenment, 1970, II: 342–3)Slide13

Economic exploitation involves inequality ofpower and control in the labour process and isintegrally linked by Ferguson to the division oflabour and mechanical labour, which are seen to have the effect of denuding and diminishingthe human agent. These adverse effects are analysed through the notion of human natureand can be described as alienation (p.471)Slide14

Herein lies an ethical imperative which seeseconomic exploitation, and the division of labour to which it is ultimately linked, asharmful, wrong and unjust (Brewer, ibid).Slide15

Iain McDaniel notes"The Essay on the History of Civil Societyopens with an account of the 'Characteristicsof Human Nature'. Ferguson's initial strategyin this section was to undermine thedistinction between nature and artifice uponwhich both Hobbes's and Rousseau'sarguments rested" (2013; p.67) Slide16

"he taught his students at Edinburgh thatJustice rested upon a 'disposition favourableto mankind' not on utility, a view whichObviously contrasted with Hume“(pp. 71-72).Slide17

Ferguson’s published inspiration comes fromthe Stoic absorption with sympathia, socialIntimacy and communitarianism, which hethen applies to the contemporary condition’(Hill, p.152).Slide18

Ferguson the proto-socialist?Magnanimity, courage, and the love ofmankind, are sacrificed to avarice and vanity, orsuppressed under a sense of dependence. Theindividual considers his community so far onlyas it can be rendered subservient to hispersonal advancement or profit: he stateshimself in competition with his fellow-creaturesSlide19

.. seems to have slow movements, a deepvoice and calm speech. For since he takesfew things seriously, he is in no hurry, andsince he counts nothing great, he is notstrident; and these (attitudes s/he avoids)are the causes of a shrill voice and hastymovements (Aristotle, Ethics)Slide20

"Magnanimity involves reaching out to, andaccommodating, what is unknown, strangeand radically different. It denotes a new kindof openness or hospitality. It means workingwith service users from very different culturaland geographical backgrounds from ourown“(Nixon, 2008). Slide21

Alasdair MacIntrye (1981):- "Ferguson's type of sociology which is theempirical counterpart of the conceptualaccount of the virtues which I have given, asociology which aspires to lay bare theempirical, causal connection betweenvirtues, practices and institutions”.Slide22

Placing Enlightenment Thinking in Contemporary Sociology and Social WorkScottish Enlightenment thinking represented a paradigm concerned with key sociological concepts that was not evident elsewhere in BritainThese reference points are echoed by Bordieu in his work on “cultural capital”Wacquant in his examination of the rise of the “hyperghetto”Standing in his work on the emergence of the “Precariat” as a “new, dangerous class”All of whom have direct reference points in modern day Social WorkSlide23

The potential for a civic virtue of magnanimityThus social workers in doing good become good, we therefore contend that it is a necessity for virtuous social workers to challenge the causes of exploitation and that this should be central plank of our activity. Social workers to promote Ferguson’s magnanimity as a central tenant of our professional ethics.The question we pose is do existing ethical codes encourage and support this aim or do they develop an overly representative focus on the individual rather than notions of the “common weal”Slide24

Toward the virtue of a Common WealAccording to Thomas P Miller Aristotle’s civic humanism underwrote the Scottish approach to political and moral theory with an emphasis on practice wisdom and prudence. Aristotle struggled with the challenge of achieving “the common good for all” in a state of “community of equals”. For Chomsky Adam Smith developed a brand of “socialism”. Smith understood that upholding the common good requires substantial intervention to assure lasting prosperity of the poor by distribution of public revenuesSlide25

Contemporary Social Work and the Common WealFeathersone, White and Morris in their critique of Child Protection present the metaphor of a “muscular” state.Responsibility is individualised and uncoupled from wider structural issues such as inequality discrimination and oppression. (e.g. David Cameron’s comments on Tracy Connolly)The role of the social worker is as the muscular arm of the state concerned with enforcing compliance with the states notion of what constitutes good parentingNotions of communitarianism and community itself are seen as secondary to the actions and motivations of the individual. The state becomes increasingly weightless (Toynbee) and hollowSlide26

Contemporary Social Work and the Common WealHenry Giroux in describing the after effects of Hurricane Katrina, and the Bush neo liberal governance as a biopolitics of disposability. Marginalised and poor members of society, are unable to engage in the prevailing consumerist ethic. They are consigned to living in sinkholes of poverty in desolate or abandoned enclaves of decaying cities or rural spaces or in an ever expanding prison empire.Social work must challenge this and and reconsider our existing ethical settlement and develop a new, radical ethical base that has at its heart an enlightened approachSlide27

Contemporary Social Work and the Common WealWe must place the notion of virtue ethics which directly challenge discrimination, exploitation, and marginalisation as the core tenants of a new radical and Enlightened Scottish social work.