Whose Keeper?: Social Science and Moral Obligation

by Alan Wolfe

Overview

Whose Keeper? is a profound and creative treatise on modernity and its challenge to social science. Alan Wolfe argues that modern liberal democracies, such as the United States and Scandinavia, have broken with traditional sources of mortality and instead have relied upon economic and political frameworks to define their obligations to one another. Wolfe calls for reinvigorating a sense of community and thus a sense of obligation to the larger society. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1989.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520309821
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	11/10/2023
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	390
File size:	5 MB

About the Author

At the time of original publication, Alan Wolfe was Professor of Sociology and Political Science and Dean of the Graduate Faculty, New School for Social Research, and author of The Limits of Legitimacy and America's Impasse, among other books. 

Editorial Reviews

This is a copiously referenced, reasoned, articulate exploration into the sources of societies' guidelines for citizens in modern liberal democracies when responding to perceived obligations, both intimate and distant. Wolfe highlights the paradox of lessening agreement on authority for setting moral rules at a time when awareness of humanity's reciprocal responsibilities is growing. He argues that, in modern civil societies, individuals possess freedom (responsiblity?) to create together a civil morality which will function alongside the self-interest-oriented authority of market (e.g., the U.S.) and public welfare-state rationale (Scandinavia), infusing a human factor with the potential to balance meeting obligations for both intimate and distant others. Sociology's role can be to instruct and support this endeavor. Recommended for university level and above.-- Suzanne W. Wood, SUNY Coll. of Technology, Alfred

Library Journal