Narrating the crisis: Moral regulation, overlapping responsibilities and COVID-19 in Canada

This article theorizes some of the ways that the COVID-19 health crisis was publicly narrated and morally regulated in Canada. Beginning with Valverde’s theory of moral capital, public health crisis communication is conceptualized as dialectical claims-making activities aimed at maximizing the individual moral capital of citizens and the aggregate moral capital of nations. Valverde’s historical sociology explains how moral capital operated in relation to economic capital accumulation in the context of 19th-century moral regulation of the urban poor. This article applies aspects of Valverde’s historical framework about mixed economies of regulation to contemporary biopolitical moralization in the midst of a pandemic. It does so by arguing that responsibilizing citizens to flatten the epidemic curve of the disease contributed to the social construction of a normative pandemic subject. In this way, the analysis provides insights into how public health crisis communication explicitly intended to mitigate COVID-19 infection rates both reflected and reinforced the conjunctural norms associated with neoliberal governmentality.

Resting-state functional connectivity of social brain regions predicts motivated dishonesty

Motivated dishonesty is a typical social behavior varying from person to person. Resting-state fMRI (rsfMRI) is capable of identifying unique patterns from functional connectivity (FC) between brain networks. To identify the relevant neural patterns and build an interpretable model to predict dishonesty, we scanned 8-min rsfMRI before an information-passing task. In the task, we employed monetary rewards to induce dishonesty. We applied both connectome-based predictive modeling (CPM) and region-of-interest (ROI) analysis to examine the association between FC and dishonesty. CPM indicated that the stronger FC between fronto-parietal and default mode networks can predict a higher dishonesty rate. The ROIs were set in the regions involving four cognitive processes (self-reference, cognitive control, reward valuation, and moral regulation). The ROI analyses showed that a stronger FC between these regions and the prefrontal cortex can predict a higher dishonesty rate. Our study offers an integrated model to predict dishonesty with rsfMRI, and the results suggest that the frequent motivated dishonest behavior may require a higher engagement of social brain regions.

Stargazers' Anonymous: an Examination of Amateur Astronomy in New Zealand

<p>In this examination of amateur astronomy in New Zealand, I suggest that astronomical science can be a medium through which adherents attempt to enact social transformation. Contemporary studies of leisure often emphasise the individualistic nature of leisure activity, with social interaction framed as a means to support the intrinsic and extrinsic motivations of participants. However, while amateur astronomers do engage in 'serious leisure' (Stebbins, 1979, 1992), I suggest their extended roles as educators and liaisons for professional counterparts push their endeavour beyond mere participation and into wider territories of public engagement and scientific discourse. Following analysis by Ruonavaara (1997), Rojek (1985, 2000), MacCannell (1976), Urry (1990) and Turner (1969), I argue that the New Zealand astronomical community's' proclivity for education operates as a forum for constructing recursive and normative action, in which ideologies congruent with scientific rationalism are disseminated through a form of moral regulation. Commencing with a discussion of the structure of New Zealand's astronomical community, I examine how informants' narratives and attitudes to contributive participation manifest in demonstrative actions that provide idealised templates for behaviour. Secondly, I discuss astronomy and public education, and how astronomical society volunteers utilise visitors' expectations of authenticity and perceptions of nature to formulate strategies for social change. Finally, I investigate the role and purpose of other astronomyrelated ventures, including Carterton's Stonehenge Aotearoa, culminating in a discussion concerning issues of knowledge, science and postmodernist deconstructionism.</p>

Stargazers' Anonymous: an Examination of Amateur Astronomy in New Zealand

<p>In this examination of amateur astronomy in New Zealand, I suggest that astronomical science can be a medium through which adherents attempt to enact social transformation. Contemporary studies of leisure often emphasise the individualistic nature of leisure activity, with social interaction framed as a means to support the intrinsic and extrinsic motivations of participants. However, while amateur astronomers do engage in 'serious leisure' (Stebbins, 1979, 1992), I suggest their extended roles as educators and liaisons for professional counterparts push their endeavour beyond mere participation and into wider territories of public engagement and scientific discourse. Following analysis by Ruonavaara (1997), Rojek (1985, 2000), MacCannell (1976), Urry (1990) and Turner (1969), I argue that the New Zealand astronomical community's' proclivity for education operates as a forum for constructing recursive and normative action, in which ideologies congruent with scientific rationalism are disseminated through a form of moral regulation. Commencing with a discussion of the structure of New Zealand's astronomical community, I examine how informants' narratives and attitudes to contributive participation manifest in demonstrative actions that provide idealised templates for behaviour. Secondly, I discuss astronomy and public education, and how astronomical society volunteers utilise visitors' expectations of authenticity and perceptions of nature to formulate strategies for social change. Finally, I investigate the role and purpose of other astronomyrelated ventures, including Carterton's Stonehenge Aotearoa, culminating in a discussion concerning issues of knowledge, science and postmodernist deconstructionism.</p>

The Distinction Between Law qnd Morality in Legal Positivism: Socio-Philosophical Dimension

The article deals with the main conceptions of the relationship between law and morality in legal positivism. The research relevance is caused by legal positivism which is influential and dynamically developing in both domestic and foreign science. The purpose of the study is to consider the features that describe the positivist approach to the differentiation between legal and moral regulation in the context of the dialectical interaction of individual and social principles in society. It presupposes the establishment of both general and special in legal positivism’s views regarding the interaction of these social regulators. Special attention is paid to the consideration of not only positive aspects of the proposed concepts but also the difficulty that arise within legal positivism. The research methodology is based on the dialectical method, the method of analysis, comparative and historical methods. These methods allow us to analyze in a historical perspective the development of views on the relationship between law and morality in legal positivism, to analyze specific features in the visions of the most influential philosophers of this doctrine, to identify common ideas that unite the philosophers considered. As a result of the conducted research, it is argued that legal positivism is characterized by the correlation of law and morality as sovereign socio-normative systems that closely interact in the structure of society, but do not have the necessary connection that mutually determines their content. The sovereign nature of legal and moral regulation implies the search for models of their interaction. It is important to determine the demarcation line of the spheres and limits of each social regulator. As a result, it is concluded that there are three possible models of this interaction, and the consequences of their implementation in society. In particular, it is determined that law and morality within the structure of society can be either indifferent to each other or have identical content realized through both regulation forms or be in relation to a contradiction adducing to a social conflict.

SPECIFICITY OF THE MORAL SPHERE OF DEVIANT AND ORDINARY ADOLESCENTS

Рассматривается духовно-нравственная сфера подростков с девиантным и социально-нормативным поведением с точки зрения их представлений о совести. Отмечается важность изучения духовно-нравственных аспектов личности в пубертатный период, когда происходит формирование системы внутренних жизненных ценностей и представлений о себе. В результате исследования были выделены девять основных смысловых единиц представлений о совести для исследуемой выборки, таких как: совесть как нравственное отношение к поступку; совесть как субъект нравственного воспитания; совесть как жизненный путеводитель; совесть как позитивный феномен; совесть как негативный феномен; совесть как регуляторно-волевой механизм; совесть как механизм нравственного сознания; совесть как юридический механизм; совесть как коммуникативная функция. The article examines the moral sphere of deviant and ordinary adolescents from the point of view of their ideas about conscience. The importance of studying the moral aspects of personality in puberty is noted, when a system of internal life values and ideas about oneself is being formed. Conscience is described as a psychological mechanism of morality and its mechanism is the moral regulation of human behavior. As a result of the study, nine basic semantic units of ideas about conscience for the studied sample were identified, such as: conscience as a moral attitude to an act; conscience as a subject of moral education; conscience as a life guide; conscience as a positive phenomenon; conscience as a negative phenomenon; conscience as a regulatory and volitional mechanism; conscience as a mechanism of moral consciousness; conscience as a legal mechanism; conscience as a communicative function. In the study we found that deviant adolescents are less focused on moral prohibitions and their lifestyle is characterized by a struggle between positive and negative influences. For ordinary adolescents, their inner selves seem worthy, interesting, and colorful; they are more likely to raise their (future) children as conscientious people. The social context for adolescents considered as an important foundation on the basis on which an internal system life values and self-image, is formed. However, the social context is considered as one of the determining factors of the specifics of the formation of ideas about conscience, deviant and socio-normative behavior of deviant and ordinary adolescents.

Let’s Clean Up and Bring Some Order Here! Moral Regulation of Markets in Yaoundé, Cameroon

This study examines activities and processes through which projects of moral regulation are implemented as well as lived, transformed, and resisted by their targeted actors. Our ethnographic study focuses on discourses and practices of civic duty for orderly and hygienic conduct in the rehabilitation of marketplaces in Yaoundé, Cameroon. By drawing on the inhabited institutions approach and the literature on ethics as practice, our analysis extends research on moral work to put forward a perspective on moral regulation as a situated practice. We show how moral work is built on individual reflections but is simultaneously negotiated through actors’ relationships, that is, responsibilities to family, interactions within the community, and personal history.

Moral regulation and a good moral panic: UK Polish migrant workers and the 2016 EU Referendum

The UK 2016 EU Referendum has introduced a period of uncertainty for both the indigenous population and for non-British citizens. This uncertainty is considered within a framework of the recent revisions in the sociology of moral panics through an analysis of interviews with Polish migrant workers. This analysis reveals two main discursive framing logics. The first logic refers to a self-reported anti-Polish migrant moral panic discourse that – according to respondents – was exploited by British anti-migrant campaigners. The second type of articulation illustrates the good moral panic logic, namely, a panicking discourse appearing among respondents about the vulnerability of their community in post-Referendum Britain. This article, however, problematises the good moral panic logic by eliciting competing narratives found in the interview data. The latter did not aim merely at stimulating caring attitudes but referred also to moral regulation techniques to manage Brexit-oriented risks and avoid the trap of becoming a vulnerable migrant.

Moral regulation as status politics: A critical reconstruction of Joseph R. Gusfield’s theory

Sociology of moral regulation has been interested in different kinds of morally charged social movements, such as the temperance movement, to investigate the social reasons why people take part in such movements. One answer is provided by Joseph Gusfield’s classic analysis of the American temperance movement, The Symbolic Crusade, published in 1963. The status politics theory developed therein provides a potential explanation of participation in moral regulation movements. This paper reconstructs the general logic of status politics explanations from an actor-centred perspective, explicating the actor image and the status anxiety mechanism inherent in the theory. Some of the problems discussed include third-person explanations and proof of status anxiety. With due caution, status politics theory provides one alternative for explaining mobilisation in moral regulation movements as well as populist politics.