The DOI matches its Crossref record; 1 of the 1 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
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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Critical discourse analysis and critical policy studies
Fairclough, N. L. (2013) · Critical Policy Studies · doi:10.1080/19460171.2013.798239 · Cited by 699
“…we must recognize that normative evaluation is an inherent (if often neglected) part of normal processes of social interaction and practice (see Sayer 2011 on ‘lay normativity’), and that part of normative evaluation is identifying aspects of life and of the actions, beliefs, arguments etc.…”
BackgroundRadical alterity is just another way of saying “reality”
Graeber, D. (2015) · Hau Journal of Ethnographic Theory · doi:10.14318/hau5.2.003 · Cited by 457
“…the Critical Realist tradition (hence, CR: Bhaskar 1975, 1979, 1986, 1989, 1994; Archer, Bhaskar, Collier, Lawson, and Norrie 1998; Hartwig 2007; Sayer 2011).31 Bhaskar’s philosophical position is far too complex to sum up in any detail, but it sets out from the same observation as Viveiros de…”
BackgroundHitlin, S., & Vaisey, S. (2013) · Annual Review of Sociology · doi:10.1146/annurev-soc-071312-145628 · Cited by 388
Tsoukas, H. (2017) · Journal of Management Studies · doi:10.1111/joms.12219 · Cited by 368
“…Plotnitsky, 2002; Thompson, 2007; Kuhn, 2000; Von Foerster, 2003), human activities are necessarily context-dependent and underlain by values (Sayer, 2011; MacIntyre, 1985); stability and change, routine and novelty are interwoven (Tsoukas and Chia, 2002; Dionysiou and Tsoukas, 2013;…”
Greenhalgh, T., Wherton, J. P., Sugarhood, P., Hinder, S., Procter, R., & Stones, R. (2013) · Social Science & Medicine · doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2013.05.036 · Cited by 319
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
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