Learning Objectives

At the end of this lecture, you should be able to:

1. Explain the difference between a theory of constructing social reality and social constructivist theories.
2. Identify the three components of a social constructionist analysis, and explain how there are different grades of commitment to the conclusions drawn.
3. Explain the difference between natural and human kinds.
4. Explain what the looping effect of human kinds is, and why it matters for the philosophy of society.

Constructing social facts vs. social constructivism

In a famous book, The Construction of Social Reality, \cite{Searle:1996} explored the conditions which had to be satisfied to make social reality. Here’s the view in a nutshell:

1. Through acts of collective intentionality, we create systems of constitutive rules of the form “$X$ counts as $Y$ in context $C$”.
2. These rules assign causally efficacious functions to objects. These functions are observer-relative features of the object (not intrinsic).
3. These rules are epistemically objective, although ontologically subjective.

Constructing social facts vs. social constructivism

One of the main readings for this week is taken from Ian Hacking’s book called The Social Construction of What?.

The title might lead you to ask the following question:

Since all of social reality is (obviously) the product of human choices or behaviour, and none of it is (strictly speaking) determined, why do people make a big deal of social constructivism?

Actually, do they?

Constructing social facts vs. social constructivism

Talk of constructing authorship makes sense, because that is obviously a social fact, in in Searle’s sense.

But what about brotherhood, danger, emotions, or facts?

Danger might make sense, as there’s a reason why we view things as dangerous or not — but how can emotions or facts be socially constructed?

Hacking: “we first need to confront the point of social construction analysis. Don’t ask for the meaning, ask what’s the point.”

Constructing social facts vs. social constructivism

The point is that social constructivism has a different focus than theories of constructing social reality.

Social constructionists about $X$ tend to hold that:

1. $X$ need not have existed, or need not be at all as it is. $X$, or $X$ as it is at present, is not determined by the nature of things; it is not inevitable.

Very often, they go further, and urge that:

2. $X$ is quite bad as it is.

3. We would be much better off if $X$ were done
   away with, or at least radically transformed.

\citep[pg. 6]{Hacking:1999}

Grades of commitment

Not all social constructivists assert or

To illustrate the possible variations, consider the idea of gender.

Early feminists grappled with the fact that power relations between the sexes needed reform, but sex differences seemed inevitable. The sex/gender distinction enabled :

$X$ [=gender] need not have existed, or need not be at all as it is. $X$, or $X$ as it is at present, is not determined by the nature of things; it is not inevitable.

Grades of commitment

Differences exist in how feminist theorists approach and

Reformists

Some want to unmask the role played by the category of gender in society, showing how it benefits only some persons.

Rebels

Some, such as Judith Butler, reject some of the foundational assumptions of the sex/gender distinction, arguing that sex differences are not given.

Revolutionaries

Others argue that all the sex and gender categories should be discarded or overthrown.

The social construction of what?

When we talk about social construction, what is it that is constructed?

Hacking reflects on the book title The Social Construction of Women Refugees, observing:

When $X$ = women refugees, propositions , and are painfully obvious. What, then, could possibly be the point of talking about the social construction of women refugees? \citep[pg. 9]{Hacking:1999}

Ideas and matrices

The point is this: it is the idea which is socially constructed, in its wider supporting matrix.

The matrix in which the idea of the woman refugee is formed is a complex of institutions, advocates, newspaper articles, lawyers, court decisions, immigration proceedings[…] \citep[pg. 10]{Hacking:1999}

The idea of the “woman refugee” is a classificatory term, which sorts people into various categories.

Ideas and matrices

Hacking notes:

Women in flight are the product of social conditions in their homelands. It would be stupid to talk about social construction in that context, because social circumstances so manifestly provoke the fear of staying home and the hope of succor in another land. But since, in Canada [Hacking's home country], woman refugee may seem a straightforward and rather inevitable way of classifying some people, there is indeed a point to claiming that the classification is far from inevitable. \citep[pg. 11]{Hacking:1999}

A precondition

A precondition

You do not find books on the social construction of banks, the fiscal system, cheques, money, dollar bills, bills of lading, contracts, tort, the Federal Reserve, or the British monarchy. These are all contractual or institutional objects, and no one doubts that contracts and institutions are the result of historical events and social processes. Hence no one urges that they are socially constructed. They are part of what John Searle (1995) calls social reality. His book is titled The Construction of Social Reality, and as I explained elsewhere \citep{Hacking:1997}, that is not a social construction book at all. \citep[pg. 12]{Hacking:1999}

Social constructivism targets those parts of social reality which appear inevitable and not that which could have been otherwise.

Six grades of constructionism

Recall the claims: $X$ is not inevitable; that $X$ is a bad thing; that the world would be a better place without $X$.

Natural kinds

A believer in natural kinds believes that:

1. Nature is divided into different kinds, or species. And the classificatory schemes used within science must coincide with these natural divisions.
2. In other words, the extension of each classificatory predicate used within science must coincide with one of these natural divisions.

One must, to quote a well-known metaphor, “carve nature at the joints”.

Natural kinds

The idea is the following: suppose $P$ is the set of all properties.

Clearly we can speak of any subset $S\subseteq P$ of properties, but some subsets of properties are special. For example:

Natural kinds

Now consider the following random set of properties:

Whereas the set of properties for an electron refer to a kind of thing that naturally occurs in the world, the set of properties for Object X does not.

From natural to human kinds

Hacking defines human kinds as follows:

When I speak of human kinds, I mean (i) kinds that are relevant to some of us, (ii) kinds that primarily sort people, their actions, and behaviour, and (iii) kinds that are studied in the human and social sciences, i.e., kinds about which we hope to have knowledge. I add (iv) that kinds of people are paramount; I want to include kinds of human behaviour, action, tendency, etc., only when they are projected to form the idea of a kind of person. \citep[pg. 354]{Hacking:1996}

Science and human kinds

One consequence of making certain kinds the subject of social science is that the scientific study ends up shaping and altering our understanding of the human kind:

• At the time of Durkheim’s writing, suicide was an act viewed through a highly moral lens. (The Church of England only changed its policy to allow full funerals for people who died by suicide in 2015.)\nocite{Durkheim:1990}
• As Hacking notes, our understand has shifted: “Suicides in novels today are not what they were […] partly because science has made suicide into a human kind.”

Natural vs. human kinds

How do human kinds differ from natural kinds?

• As Hacking notes, “Caked mud and polarized electrons are good or bad, depending on what you want to do with them, but child abuse is bad and multiple personality is a disorder to be healed.”
• Human kinds are (inseparably) value-laden.

  Human kinds are kinds that people may want to be or not to be, not in order to attain some end but because human kinds have intrinsic moral value. \citep[pg. 367]{Hacking:1996}

The interactive element of human kinds

Natural kinds

If $N$ is a natural kind and $Z$ is $N$, it makes no direct difference to $Z$, if it is called $N$.

Human kinds

If $H$ is a human kind and $A$ is a person, then calling $A$ $H$ may make us treat $A$ differently, just as calling $Z$ $N$ may make us do something to $Z$ […] But it also makes a difference to $A$ to know that $A$ is an $H$, precisely because there is so often a moral connotation to a human kind. Perhaps $A$ does not want to be $H$!

The descriptive power of human kinds

Hacking notes that acquiring a new human kind can enable us to redescribe our past to such an extent that it makes it possible to experience new pasts.

For example, consider the phenomenon Miranda Fricker named hermeneutic injustice: when some groups suffer a kind of epistemic injustice because of the absence of descriptive categories which would help them understand their experiences.\nocite{Fricker:2006,Fricker:2007}

The looping effect of human kinds

What Hacking calls the looping effect of human kinds consists of three interconnected claims:

1. When someone is labelled as a kind, that label affects how they are seen and how they understand themselves. This changes individuals of that kind.
2. Because the kind changes, there is new knowledge to be had about the kind.
3. That new knowledge then becomes part of what is to be known about members of that kind, which changes them again.

Kinds of kinds

There are many different types of human kinds.

Second-order kinds

A second-order kind applies to other kind terms. For example, normalcy. Nothing is just normal, you have to say a normal what.

Biologized kinds

When a human kind is seen as having a biological basis, it can partially obviate the moralistic aspect to the kind. For example, the alcoholic. When biologized, the alcoholic is transformed from a moral failing to someone with a disease that needs to be treated.

Kinds of kinds

There are many different types of human kinds.

Inaccessible kinds

These are kinds where the person so classified cannot appreciate how they are classified, like infants.

Administrative kinds

Terms used by bureaucracies, for classification. These kinds can take on a life of their own. For example: the term “Hispanic” as defined by the OMB in 1977.

Self-ascriptive kinds

Terms adopted by groups for purposes of self-identification. Hacking discusses how “homosexual” — a kind term originally applied by scientists to subjects — was adopted and helped facilitate gay liberation.

Social constructivism and the looping effect

Social constructivism and the looping effect can thus interact in important ways:

1. We begin with the precondition: that $X$ is taken for granted, or that $X$ appears to be inevitable.
2. The nature of $X$ is reconsidered, often by those who are $X$, sometimes reacting to their classification.
3. This reaction can cause the nature of $X$ to change, which then affects those who are $X$, and on it goes.