Abstract
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 369-375 |
| Number of pages | 7 |
| Journal | Journal of Constructivist Psychology |
| Volume | 31 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| Early online date | 21 Nov 2017 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2 Oct 2018 |
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Constructivism and the Inescapability of Moral Choices : A Response to Raskin and Debany. / Burr, Vivien.
In: Journal of Constructivist Psychology, Vol. 31, No. 4, 02.10.2018, p. 369-375.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
TY - JOUR
T1 - Constructivism and the Inescapability of Moral Choices
T2 - A Response to Raskin and Debany
AU - Burr, Vivien
PY - 2018/10/2
Y1 - 2018/10/2
N2 - In their article on ethics, Raskin and Debany (this issue) raise a number of important issues that merit discussion and have implications for a constructivist stance on ethics, an issue that has dogged constructivist and social constructionist theory and has, in the past, been the focus of a good deal of debate. In my response to their article, I focus on two issues before going on to consider what these imply for a constructivist ethics. The first is the status of “reality”; drawing on the work of French philosophers, discursive psychology, and symbolic interactionism, I argue that the constructivist conception of reality has been widely misunderstood and will outline what I regard as a defensible construction of reality. The second issue concerns the relationship between the individual and the social world; drawing again on earlier work in microsociology, I argue that the “constructed” individual must be understood as emerging from the social realm rather than preexisting it, and I argue for personal construct psychology as a candidate for filling the subjectivity “gap” in social constructionism. Finally, I use these conceptualizations of reality and the person to argue for an ethical stance of “radical doubt” for constructivism.
AB - In their article on ethics, Raskin and Debany (this issue) raise a number of important issues that merit discussion and have implications for a constructivist stance on ethics, an issue that has dogged constructivist and social constructionist theory and has, in the past, been the focus of a good deal of debate. In my response to their article, I focus on two issues before going on to consider what these imply for a constructivist ethics. The first is the status of “reality”; drawing on the work of French philosophers, discursive psychology, and symbolic interactionism, I argue that the constructivist conception of reality has been widely misunderstood and will outline what I regard as a defensible construction of reality. The second issue concerns the relationship between the individual and the social world; drawing again on earlier work in microsociology, I argue that the “constructed” individual must be understood as emerging from the social realm rather than preexisting it, and I argue for personal construct psychology as a candidate for filling the subjectivity “gap” in social constructionism. Finally, I use these conceptualizations of reality and the person to argue for an ethical stance of “radical doubt” for constructivism.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85034651686&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/10720537.2017.1384339
DO - 10.1080/10720537.2017.1384339
M3 - Article
VL - 31
SP - 369
EP - 375
JO - Journal of Constructivist Psychology
JF - Journal of Constructivist Psychology
SN - 1072-0537
IS - 4
ER -