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Why Things Matter to People: Social Science, Values and Ethical Life
Abstract
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.
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“To reiterate, we are real, needy material beings (emotional, social, dependent and so much more both physically and psychologically; see Sayer 2011).”
From Species Being in the Twenty-First Century (2018) · cites this paper as Sayer 2011
In the citing paper
“To the extent that the clinician's role includes making decisions (perhaps on a shared basis with the patient), these are not merely 'rational' (i.e. based on the best available medical evidence) but also practical and ethicalthat is, they take account of the situated details of individual cases, including a serious engagement with 'what matters to people' to particular flesh-and-blood patients.77”
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Archer, M. S. (2017) · Social morphogenesis · doi:10.1007/978-3-319-49469-2_1 · Cited by 12
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“For us, there is a world ‘out there’ in which real people occupy objective social situations that include real barriers to creating a flourishing life (Sayer, 2011).”
BackgroundThe murky middle ground – When ethnographers engage public health
Hopper, K. J. (2013) · Social Science & Medicine · doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2013.10.025 · Cited by 12
Editorial: Environmental Justice as Empirical and Normative
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Monetising Social Impact: A Critique of the ‘Financialisation’ of Social Value
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The Virtuousness of Ethical Networks: How to Foster Virtuous Practices in Nonprofit Organizations
Mion, G., Vigolo, V., Bonfanti, A., & Tessari, R. (2023) · Journal of Business Ethics · doi:10.1007/s10551-023-05326-y · Cited by 11
“While all agents make decisions, they become moral agents when exhibiting a value structure and pursuing moral commitments in their practices (Sayer, 2011; Selznick, 2016).”
BackgroundInnovation for sustainability: how actors are myopically caught in processes of co-evolution
Kemp, R., & van Lente, H. (2023) · Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences · doi:10.1098/rstb.2022.0270 · Cited by 11
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Chughtai, H. (2019) · Journal of Contemporary Ethnography · doi:10.1177/0891241619855130 · Cited by 11
“Despite this effortlessness, our purpose of engaging with a device is resonated with our values that cannot be negated by the disappearance or lack of effort (cf. Sayer 2011, 26–29).”
BackgroundCacerolazo: emociones y memoria en el movimiento estudiantil 2011
Ruiz, N. (2019) · Polis (Santiago) · doi:10.32735/s0718-6568/2019-n53-1385 · Cited by 11
“Como lo señala Sayer (2011), hasta algunos años las ciencias sociales tendían a descartar las emociones como aspectos más bien relativos a psicología con escasa influencia en los procesos sociales.”
BackgroundMcBride, J., & Lucio, M. M. (2020) · Capital & Class · doi:10.1177/0309816820924413 · Cited by 11
“With respect to how the work is socially valued, we suggest that these debates be set alongside the work of Sayer (2011) particularly on ‘values’ and how the value of work is perceived.”
BackgroundInfluentialSelling debt: Interrogating the moral claims of the financial elites in Central Asia
Sanghera, B., & Satybaldieva, E. (2020) · Capital & Class · doi:10.1177/0309816820943174 · Cited by 11
“They continually have to monitor and evaluate how the things they care about are faring and what to do next (Sayer 2011).”
BackgroundA Sociologia como uma Filosofia Prática e Moral (e vice versa)
Vandenberghe, F. (2015) · Sociologias · doi:10.1590/15174522-017003903 · Cited by 11
Hammersley, M. (2014) · Nouveaux cahiers de la recherche en éducation · doi:10.7202/1027321ar · Cited by 11
“Of course, there are those who argue that research can legitimately move from establishing descriptive and explanatory facts to drawing and presenting normative conclusions about what is good or bad, right or wrong, and about what should, and should not, be done (see, for example, Sayer, 2011).”
BackgroundFurthering alternative cultures of valuation in higher education research
Downs, Y. (2015) · Cambridge Journal of Education · doi:10.1080/0305764x.2015.1102865 · Cited by 13
Public, private, and the appeal to common good: Practices of justification in a peer‐to‐peer economy
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Unearthing intentionality: Building transformative capacity by reclaiming consciousness
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“For this reason, Sayer (2011) refers to humans as ethical beings while Bhaskar (2002b) postulates that humans are inherently capable of love, creativity, freedom, right action, and ful fi lment and that these are the essential, natural characteristics and inclinations of humans which allow the unity…”
BackgroundCritical social science and emancipation: II , development and application
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“This is characteristic of ordinary ethics: Everyday ethical conduct is not only about finding a logical solution or watertight psychological coherence, but rather about living through and with the puzzles that one faces (Sayer 2011; Lambek 2010).”
BackgroundNesterova, I. (2023) · Society Register · doi:10.14746/sr.2023.7.1.03 · Cited by 10
“Such calls are grounded in a hopeful and optimistic view of human nature: inherent human goodness is assumed, whereby we naturally exhibit concern for the world around us and for each other (Sayer, 2011).”
BackgroundTheorizing Agency and Domination through a Critical Realist Perspective on Gender Positionality
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An Aristotelian Theory of Family
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“Indeed, some people 49 Sayer 2011.”
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“In fact, in its ‘quest for respectability through recognition as a science’ (Levitas, 2010, p. 538), the discipline of sociology itself came to develop an aversion towards evaluation (Levitas, 2013; Sayer, 2011; Scott & Marshall, 2005) and prescription (Dawson, 2016; Levitas, 2010, 2013).”
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Towards a critical character education using virtue ethics philosophy and Bourdieu’s sociology
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Negotiating Well-being: Older People's Narratives of Relationships and Relationality
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Sociological contributions for researching morality and cultivating states of moral character
Walker, D. (2020) · Journal of Moral Education · doi:10.1080/03057240.2020.1772212 · Cited by 8
“More optimistically, and motivated by questions of how people might live well, a small group of academics have recently combined sociological perspectives with virtue ethics philosophy (Gorski, 2012; MacIntyre, 1983; Mooney, 2014; Sayer, 2011).”
BackgroundInfluentialMapping “Varieties of Workplace Bullying”: The Scope of the Field
D’Cruz, P., & Noronha, E. (2019) · Handbooks of Workplace Bullying, Emotional Abuse and Harassment/Handbooks of workplace bullying, emotional abuse and harassment · doi:10.1007/978-981-10-5334-4_1-1 · Cited by 9
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Transnational Migration, Everyday Pedagogies and Cultural Destabilization
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Value pluralism in urban planning
McAuliffe, C., & Rogers, D. (2020) · Planning Theory · doi:10.1177/1473095219900350 · Cited by 9
“University of Sydney, Australia In response to Yamamoto’s comment on our paper, we briefly discuss three points that further clarify our appeal to the plural values that animate and motivate thought and action, not just as a politics, but as an engagement with the social in an attempt to engage, as Andrew Sayer (2011)…”
BackgroundInfluentialComplementary and Alternative Medicine
Sointu, E. (2021) · doi:10.1002/9781119633808.ch25 · Cited by 10
The Value Dynamics of Data Capitalism: Cultural Production and Consumption in a Datafied World
Bolin, G. (2022) · Transforming communications · doi:10.1007/978-3-030-96180-0_8 · Cited by 13
ChatGPT and the separation between knowledge and knower
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“…relevant process which also exists somewhat beyond people’s perceptions and understandings of it, the issue of trust in AI is thus reduced to an epistemic rather than an ontological problem, the latter being fundamental to any ethics of human practice (Collier, 1999; Porpora, 2019; Sayer, 2011).”
Neoliberalism and the Value of Higher Education
Downs, Y. (2017) · SensePublishers eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-94-6300-854-9_5 · Cited by 9
Regional solidarity undermined? Higher education developments in the Arabian gulf, economy and time
Hayes, A. L., & Al’Abri, K. M. (2018) · Comparative Education · doi:10.1080/03050068.2018.1504884 · Cited by 8
“Moral economy is understood in the paper, drawing on ideas from Polanyi (1957) and Sayer (2000, 2011), as economic developments that are built on moral undercurrents, in the sense they emphasise the relationship between the society and the economy.”
BackgroundAlderson, P., Bellsham‐Revell, H., Dedieu, N., King, L., Mendizabal‐Espinosa, R. M., & Sutcliffe, K. (2022) · Journal of Child Health Care · doi:10.1177/13674935221100419 · Cited by 9
“Critical realist analysis that observes processes ‘ from the inside ’ (Sayer, 2011:13) reveals unseen causal in fl uences of personal motives and values, and moral feelings of hope and fear, central to consent.”
BackgroundGates, E., Page, G. G., Crespo, J. M., et al. (2022) · Evaluation · doi:10.1177/13563890221129640 · Cited by 8
“This is in line with phronetic (Flyvbjerg, 2001) and critical approaches to the social sciences (Sayer, 2011) and restoring related professions to value-rational questions (i.e. desired ends) rather than narrower instrumental-rationality (i.e. means to given ends) (Adler et al., 2015).”
BackgroundCan Complexity add anything to Critical Realism and the Morphogenetic Approach?
Archer, M. S. (2024) · Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour · doi:10.1111/jtsb.12419 · Cited by 8
The art of persuasion: Theorizing as argumentation
Bhardwaj, A. (2025) · Strategic Organization · doi:10.1177/14761270251316028 · Cited by 8
Social theory, current affairs, and Thailand’s political turmoil: seeing beyond reds vs. yellows
Stones, R., & Tangsupvattana, A. (2012) · Journal of Political Power · doi:10.1080/2158379x.2012.698900 · Cited by 11
Human Agency and Mental Illness
Mooney, M. (2016) · Journal of Critical Realism · doi:10.1080/14767430.2016.1193675 · Cited by 8
“Although many sociologists still adhere in discourse to the fact-value distinction (see Gorski 2013; Sayer 2011) the interviews I conducted were interpersonal interactions with clear ethical dimensions.”
BackgroundMoral decisionism and its discontents
Abend, G. (2018) · Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour · doi:10.1111/jtsb.12191 · Cited by 8
‘Watching out for my boo’: Understanding women’s aggression in a night-time economy
Swann, R. (2019) · Criminology & Criminal Justice · doi:10.1177/1748895819841102 · Cited by 7
“Borrowing a phrase from Sayer (2011), the following exposition aims to foreground ‘why things matter to people’ in developing an appreciative and authentic account of their behaviours.”
BackgroundMapping “Varieties of Workplace Bullying”: The Scope of the Field
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Conceptualizing Agency and Agents in Earth System Governance
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D’Cruz, P., Bisht, N. S., & Noronha, E. (2021) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-981-16-2362-2_2 · Cited by 10
How institutional doxa shapes access to higher education through framings of ‘potential’
Rainford, J. (2021) · Power and Education · doi:10.1177/17577438211040021 · Cited by 6
Process Theorizing and Routine Dynamics
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Emotional subjectivities and the trajectory of a Peruvian mining conflict
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Zhussipbek, G., & Nagayeva, Z. (2022) · Social Sciences · doi:10.3390/socsci12010022 · Cited by 8
“Social Determination of Parenting and Family Support as a Right of the Child Critical realist scholars emphasize that humans are by nature not only capable and active beings but also needy, dependent, and vulnerable (Sayer 2011).”
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Lind, J., Hansen, C., & Khoury, N. (2023) · Social Sciences · doi:10.3390/socsci12030143 · Cited by 8
“According to Sayer (2011), both agency and vulnerability can “prompt us to act or fail to act” (Sayer 2011, p. 5, see also Butler et al. 2016).”
BackgroundPositivism in Understanding the Contemporary Social World: A Critical Dis- cussion
Ali, H., & Chowdhury, M. F. (2016) · Cited by 8
Living Authentic: "Being True to Yourself" as a Contemporary Moral Ideal
Hookway, N. S. (2015) · M/C Journal · doi:10.5204/mcj.953 · Cited by 8
Boonen, M. J. M. H., Vosman, F. J. H., & Niemeijer, A. R. (2015) · Nursing Inquiry · doi:10.1111/nin.12119 · Cited by 8
Eronen-Valli, M. (2013) · Discourse & Communication · doi:10.1177/1750481313510818 · Cited by 8
“Through such mechanical argumentation practices, a community makes its members mere puppets required to follow the community’s ‘truths’ (see Sayer, 2011: 33–34), as Examples 9–12 show: (9) Prone to violence.”
BackgroundDignity and Membership: A Route to the Heart of How Dignity Is Done in Everyday Interaction
Mitchell, L. (2016) · Palgrave Macmillan UK eBooks · doi:10.1057/978-1-137-55562-5_3 · Cited by 8
Dignity‐based practices in Norwegian activation work
Ohls, C. (2019) · International Journal of Social Welfare · doi:10.1111/ijsw.12388 · Cited by 8
Lu, B. C., Koo, A. C., & Pun, N. (2019) · The Sociological Review · doi:10.1177/0038026119845552 · Cited by 8
Pursuit of fairness in household financial arrangements among young middle-class couples in Poland
Olcoń-Kubicka, M. (2019) · Journal of Consumer Culture · doi:10.1177/1469540519891272 · Cited by 8
“I will argue that negotiations concerning financial arrangements are driven by a lay morality (Sayer, 2011), which our interlocutors framed as ‘fairness’.”
BackgroundSocial Psychological Ingredients for a Sociology of Morality
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Landscape as Experienced Place and Worth Conserving in the Drawings of Finnish and Swedish Students
Yli‐Panula, E., Persson, C., Jeronen, E., et al. (2019) · Education Sciences · doi:10.3390/educsci9020093 · Cited by 8
“The knowledge of students’ subjective world views [1], their environmental conceptions, experiences, and relationship to the environment are remarkable when developing sustainable education in schools.”
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“This is reflected in the concept’s centrality to indigenous (Tynan, 2021) and feminist knowledge (Butler, 1990; Sayer, 2011).”
BackgroundThe significance of urban greenspaces in everyday life
Hardwicke, J., Hill, K. M., & Ryan, D. J. (2024) · International Review of Sociology · doi:10.1080/03906701.2024.2437396 · Cited by 6
“Following Sayer (2011), we hold that the foundation for doing ethical and moral research that ‘matters’ flows from striving to reduce avoidable human suffering and/or enhancing human flourishing.”
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How Geographies and Issues Matter in ESG–Agency Research
Gerlak, A. K., Mills‐Novoa, M., Elder, A. D., Enechi, O., Sharma, P., & Singh, K. (2020) · Cambridge University Press eBooks · doi:10.1017/9781108688277.004 · Cited by 7
Au‐Yeung, T. C. (2021) · Social Policy and Society · doi:10.1017/s147474642100035x · Cited by 7
“The moral economy, hence, emphasises the inseparability between materialistic self-interest and non-materialistic values (Sayer, 2011; Bolton and Laaser, 2013; Morris, 2016).”
BackgroundWillems, W., Heltzel, A., Nabuurs, J. A., et al. (2023) · Humanities and Social Sciences Communications · doi:10.1057/s41599-023-01674-2 · Cited by 7
Does the role of personal academic tutor have an impact on staff wellbeing?
Augustus, J., Goodall, D., & Williams, B. (2023) · Research in Post-Compulsory Education · doi:10.1080/13596748.2023.2253656 · Cited by 7
“Instead, as qualitative researchers we were aiming for rich descriptions surrounding the context of the data, which offer the chance of reaching explanations of the phenomenon (Sayer 2011, 23–28; Wendy and Peter 2001, 260–262).”
BackgroundTaking empirical evidence seriously v.2.01
Tilden, T., Solem, M., Thuen, F., Lorås, L., Stokkebekk, J., & Whittaker, K. J. (2024) · Journal of Family Therapy · doi:10.1111/1467-6427.12448 · Cited by 7
Elsehrawy, R., Kumar, B., & Watson, R. (2024) · Journal of Critical Realism · doi:10.1080/14767430.2023.2301277 · Cited by 7
“First, from a critical realist position, Sayer (2011, 136) critiques the epistemic fallacy inherent in arguments like (d), where ‘ from the correct point that human well-being is always culturally de fi ned or conceptualized – via particular cultural discourses – it is wrongly inferred that the…”
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Temporal structures of the poor: Social mobility and the struggle for the future in Chile
Güell, P. I., & Díaz, M. Y. (2021) · The Sociological Review · doi:10.1177/0038026121990976 · Cited by 7
“Sayer (2011) asserts that particular cultural and social arrangements influence individuals’ virtues by encouraging certain behaviours and shaping what is considered acceptable and desirable.”
BackgroundLiving bioethics, clinical ethics committees and children's consent to heart surgery
Alderson, P., Bowman, D., Brierley, J., Elliott, M. J., Kazmi, R., Mendizabal‐Espinosa, R. M., Montgomery, J., Sutcliffe, K., & Wellesley, H. (2021) · Clinical Ethics · doi:10.1177/14777509211034145 · Cited by 8
“Critical theorists, however, contend that all social life and research are imbued with moral meaning, and social facts cannot be separated from values.(8) They believe objectivity means being fair and open-minded, but not being value-free or neutral, which is impossible on moral questions such as about social justice.”
BackgroundRecognition of Family Life by Children Living in Kinship Care Arrangements in England
Shuttleworth, P. D. (2022) · The British Journal of Social Work · doi:10.1093/bjsw/bcac114 · Cited by 7
Grohmann, S. (2022) · Journal of Critical Realism · doi:10.1080/14767430.2022.2095120 · Cited by 7
“capable of flourishing and suffering, are subject to evaluative judgments that are circumscribed and necessitated by their nature (Sayer 2011).”
BackgroundOrdinary overflow: Food waste and the ethics of the refrigerator
Salonen, A. S. (2022) · Food and Foodways · doi:10.1080/07409710.2022.2089828 · Cited by 7
Grigoletto, F., de Oliveira, F. A., Momesso, C. C., Nehemy, I. K. R., de Almeida-Júnior, J. E., Pedro, V. D. A. S., Greco, R., Alves, M. A., & Edwards, T. (2023) · Sustainability · doi:10.3390/su15086654 · Cited by 10
Otsuki, K. (2023) · Environment and Planning A Economy and Space · doi:10.1177/0308518x231182431 · Cited by 7
“Or, as Sayer (2011: 144) put it: people come to recognise the ‘ values-in-use ’ , which ‘ may be more important than their espoused ideas in guiding what they do ’ , as they experience new values that their society ascribes to their livelihoods more broadly.”
Moral identity, identification and emotion: a relational and interactive approach
Abbott, O., & Burkitt, I. (2023) · International Review of Sociology · doi:10.1080/03906701.2023.2242648 · Cited by 7
“In conceptualising the relationship between morality and identity, sociologists have typically drawn on perspectives from either social philosophy or social psychology (Hitlin, 2003; Keane, 2015; Sayer,2011).”
BackgroundInfluentialVachet, J. (2024) · The Sociological Review · doi:10.1177/00380261241276928 · Cited by 7
“Indeed, we are evaluative beings with ethical and moral values for whom things matter (Sayer, 2011).”
Metadata
- Authors
- Sayer, A.
- Affiliations
- Lancaster University (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Sayer, Andrew
- ORCID
- Sayer, Andrew
- Venue
- Cambridge University Press eBooks
- Publisher
- Cambridge University Press
- Published
- 2011-01-20
- OpenAlex
- W3188963984
- Cited by
- 929
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 73 · 2025: 72 · 2024: 69 · 2023: 74 · 2022: 55 · 2021: 59 · 2020: 84 · 2019: 60 · 2018: 65 · 2017: 63 · 2016: 76 · 2015: 66 · 2014: 36 · 2013: 49 · 2012: 22
- FWCI
- 44.69
- Type
- book
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Cambridge University Press eBooks (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Critical Realism in Sociology
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Philosophical Ethics and Theory
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Contemporary Sociological Theory and Practice
- Keywords
- concern, values, critique of modernism, eudaimonia, human dignity, everyday ethics, social theory, philosophy of social science, well-being, interpersonal relationships, critique of social science
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
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