Real Utopias and the University: An Interview

Abstract

I think it is useful to contrast two different ways of thinking about the moral foundations of what can be called “critical emancipatory social science.” The first emphasizes the ways in which existing institutions and social structures generate human suffering and obstruct human flourishing. The second emphasizes the ways in which existing institutions and social structures distribute the conditions for suffering and flourishing unfairly. The first of these anchors the moral critique of the world as it is in terms of human interests, the second in terms of social justice. I think both of these are important. The world would be a better place if suffering and flourishing were less unequally distributed, and it would be a better place if there was less suffering and more flourishing. Both matter. But if I had to say which of these ideas was the more fundamental to my work, I would have to say that it was the first. This is why, in my 2012 presidential address at the American Sociological Association, I argued that the fundamental propositions of a critical emancipatory social science were the following:

Foundational proposition of critical social science: Many forms of human suffering and many deficits in human flourishing are the result of existing institutions and social structures.

Foundational proposition of emancipatory social science: Transforming existing institutions and social structures in the right way has the potential to substantially reduce human suffering and expand the possibilities for human flourishing.