Basic Values

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK - INTERPRETING DEVELOPMENT

education, by moving to a new neighborhood, maybe to a new country, we will be accepted and respected to a certain extent, but not completely.

Bourdieu gives the following examples. Take for instance the medical doctor, who is a skilled brain surgeon, but at the same time is a woman or perhaps someone with a different ethnic background. He or she is accepted within the work group, but can never achieve the top position within their branch at the hospital – not due to a lack of experience or skills, but rather due to a lack of acceptance as a member of the social field.

The diagram illustrates how four different social fields – in this case, social classes – are related to each other. In the kind of investigation such as the sociological investigation that Bourdieu carried out different social fields will appear. These do not only concern social classes, but will in addition show differences between different work groups, workplaces, neighborhoods etcetera, in so far as they have a place, or a dominating social field on the sociologic map that is drawn. The differences in acceptance in the different fields cannot solely be explained with criteria or with logic classifications such as education, skill, neighborhood, economy or criteria that is possible to measure. And this is why Bourdieu talks about habitus.

Habitus is the formative structure, which organizes the practices and the interpretation of the attributes, while at the same time habitus acts as the structured structure. This in turn is the principle for the division into the different logical classifications that organize the way of assessing the social world that will then exist in an embodied form. It can be noted that the social world itself is a product and a result of the way societies divide social classes. The social class is defined by the structure of all relevant characteristics. This is why we have to make clear that there is a web of secondary characteristics, with which we more or less consciously

Figure 13: Social classes in relation to the amount of cultural and economic capital.

After Bourdieu

present, every time we deal with classes that are constructed on the basis of only one single criterion or on a couple of criteria, as often seen in investigations.

It is common practice to reduce the number of criteria in an investigation of a phenomenon. We need to limit our investigations in order to be able to take it in in its entirety. In this limiting process, our image of what the typical criteria are is usually chosen to represent the phenomena as a whole. This affects the results, which due to the reduction become more uncertain. Reflecting Bourdieu’s thoughts about habitus, this reduction leaves the formative structure outside the investigation, in favor of the structured structure, namely the division into different logical classifications. Consequently this makes the investigation fractional and the results that follow are more or less biased towards the expected. A redundant approach does have a tendency to overestimate the interpretation of the results, rather than to underestimate them.

In Bourdieu’s discourses, the focus is on the possibilities of moving between different social classes. In my research, I want to show how basic values as a part of our habitus, as defined by Bourdieu, affect us within development processes. The understanding of values is traditionally discussed and developed within the fields of ethics and moral philosophy and is perhaps most associated with these areas. From this point of view, it is important to at least briefly consider the different ways of approaching the understanding of values.

Ethics

Our basic values can be articulated on different levels. Ethical questions, in different ways are all about values. The issue of ethics is often interpreted as synonymous with morality. But there is a distinction between these two concepts – ethics and morality. Ethics can be understood as the theoretical expression through which we reflect our thoughts about human values and their basis, while morality is understood as people’s actions in practice and thereby their underlying and – not always clearly expressed – values. A person’s or a group’s morality is expressed in what they do or don’t do. In work with management ethical standpoints are crucial, and not only ethical standpoints, but moral behavior as well.

Ethics is the study of moral phenomena and moral representations.

Traditionally ethics is developed within the field of philosophy as well as in the field of theology. Ethics do not represent one single scientific

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK - INTERPRETING DEVELOPMENT

approach. Four main approaches include: normative ethics which investigate which moral can best be argued for; it wants to give advice in ambiguous situations or clearly present different alternatives for action; it weighs the reasons that speak in favor of or against, the different alternatives. Moral science investigates the psychology, biology, history and social background or prerequisites for moral phenomena and representations. Moral theology investigates moral phenomena and representations in relation to religious beliefs and thoughts. And meta-ethics deals with theoretical problems brought to the fore by moral phenomena and how they are represented such as in statements made about them. The choice of approach depends on the nature of the moral problem that is being discussed.

Human Qualities

Questions about ethics are also raised outside the wide field of ethics.

Qualities in life are a subject for discussion and this, in a sense can be seen as questions that deal with various approaches to ethics.

Interest in how to facilitate and maintain the qualities in human life and the synchronization with different new techniques, is increasing within several scientific branches. Occupational health aspects, ergonomics, and human factors are well-established within HCI, but other interests can be discerned in the immediate sphere of HCI. Various new interest groups are developing, with just slightly different foci and foundations.

Computer Ethics

Computer ethics is one of these newer fields of interest that have evolved and that deal with raising questions about technology and its impact on human values or human qualities. The profound social consequences arising from powerful technologies are seen in organizations that have been completely transformed as a consequence of the introduction of powerful information technology. The focus of computer ethics is on how new technology has affected our environment, in so far as activities have radically changed both within organizations and in the collaboration between different actors. The consequences of this kind of radical change challenge our legal systems and social norms and highlight concerns about the impact of such changes on us in general, as well as on our interaction with organizations. This raises questions that are important for several different fields of research.

ICT & Human Qualities

Another coming area is information and communication technology, ICT, in relation to qualities in life. The issues that are raised here include the effects of ICT on work life and organizations, as well as on private life. In an anthology on the subject Humans on the Net (Bradley, G., ed. 2002) the author comes to the conclusion that it is of great importance to protect our human needs when new technology is developed; the need to protect a secure and safe life, the need for us to influence our own circumstances, the need to feel a sense of belonging and the need to learn and develop.

All these needs are crucial for feeling that life has meaning.

These are just some examples of how ethical issues influence different views on technology, work environment and on organizations as a whole.

Ethical thereby affect many different scientific branches.