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My Role and its Duties1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 January 2010

Martin Hollis
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Extract

Recipes for the Good Society used to run, in caricature, something like this:

1. Take about 2000 hoM, sap., analyse each into essence and accidents and discard the accidents.

2. Place essences in a large casserole, add socialising syrup and stew until conflict disappears.

3. Serve with a pinch of salt.

Type
Papers
Information
Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements , Volume 8: Nature and Conduct , March 1974 , pp. 180 - 199
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy and the contributors 1974

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Footnotes

1

My warm thanks are due to Alan Dawe, Bryan Heading and Quentin Skinner for many helpful comments on an earlier draft and discussions of the issues involved.

References

2 Bradley, F. H., ‘My Station and Its Duties’ in his Ethical Studies (Oxford, 1876; O.U.P. paperback, 1962) chap. v.Google Scholar

3 That there are two perspectives is a commonplace of sociology. In a large literature I have found Dawe, Alan, ‘The Two Sociologies’ (British Journal of Sociology, 1970Google Scholar; reprinted in Sociological Perspectives, Penguin in association with the Open University Press, 1971), especially lucid and suggestive. The perspectives are the passive and the active, not to be confused with another celebrated dispute between homo sociologicus and homo psychologicus, which usually occurs within the passive conception and is, in any case, a separate question. Debate between passive and active is also familiar in philosophy, where it usually takes more oblique forms — what the mind itself contributes to the interpretation of experience, for instance, or whether action needs its own canons of explanation. In tracing both conceptions to the Enlightenment, my aim is schematic rather than historical and I am not doubting the influence of later conservative thinkers on the passive conception nor of romantics on the active.

4 For a highly individualistic (and doubtless contentious) interpretation of Mead, see Blumer, Herbert, ‘Sociological Implications of the Thought of G. H. Mead’, American Journal of Sociology (1966).Google Scholar

5 Alan Dawe (loc. cit), approaching sociologically, throws the conceptions into instructive relief by contrasting two kinds of question. A passive conception is typified by the ‘Problem of Order’ (how society integrates the behaviour of its members) and an active conception by the ‘Problem of Control’ (how men manipulate their social context). There is much to interest philosophers in these paradigmatic problems.

6 I owe this point to Malcolm Bradbury. See Bradbury, M., Heading, B. and Hollis, M., ‘The Man and the Mask: A Discussion of Role Theory’ in Role, ed. Jackson, J. A. (Cambridge, 1971).Google ScholarPubMed

7 Skinner, Q., ‘The Principles and Practice of Opposition: the Case of Bolingbroke versus Walpole’ in Historical Perspectives: Studies in English Thought and Society 1500–1900, ed. McKendrick, N. (London, 1974).Google Scholar Skinner's interpretation of Bolingbroke is self-confessedly contentious but I borrow it without apology to other historians who might wish to object, since it illustrates the philosophical point, whether it is correct or not. I also have much in mind his admirable essay ‘“Social Meaning” and the Explanation of Social Action’ in Philosophy, Politics and Society, ed. Laslett, P., Runciman, W. G. and Skinner, Q., Fourth Series (Blackwell, 1972).Google Scholar

8 Equally Skinner could appeal to Bolingbroke's role-set to explain why, although all his contemporaries, including Walpole himself, saw themselves as patriots, not all applauded the attack on the ministry. Bolingbroke and his supporters could perhaps be shown to form a group with ‘duties’ and reasons for action of their own.

9 The relation between reasons and motives needs more care than I can give it here. So I am grateful to R. S. Peters for the general strategy of The Concept of Motivation (London, 1958)Google Scholar and for pointing out to me the help to be had from his other writings in following up the case I am presenting here. (See Peters, R. S., Psychology and Ethical Development (London, 1974)Google Scholar chaps 4 and 18.