Sociétés contemporaines

The scientific study of "la morale" at the beginnings of modern

social psychology in France / L'étude scientifique de la morale aux
origines de la psychologie sociale moderne en France
Gregory Mcguire

Citer ce document / Cite this document :

Mcguire Gregory. The scientific study of "la morale" at the beginnings of modern social psychology in France / L'étude
scientifique de la morale aux origines de la psychologie sociale moderne en France. In: Sociétés contemporaines N°13, Mars
1993. La psychologie sociale et ses histoires. pp. 155-165;

doi : https://doi.org/10.3406/socco.1993.1107

https://www.persee.fr/doc/socco_1150-1944_1993_num_13_1_1107

Fichier pdf généré le 03/04/2018

Résumé
[L'étude scientifique de là morale aux origines de la psychologie sociale modeme en France] : Dans cet
article, on suggère qu 'à la fin du siècle dernier la science de la morale était d'une importance
fondamentale au début de la psychologie sociale moderne. Les règles et les influences morales étaient
envisagées comme des déterminants vitaux du comportement social à plusieurs niveaux : les éléments
moraux intrinsèques (l'obligation morale) et les éléments moraux extrinsèques (le devoir moral) étaient
considérés comme le fondement de phénomènes comme l'influence social, l'imitation, l'hypnose, et la
suggestion, etc. On examine en détail l'évolution de l'étude scientifique de la morale depuis celle des
théoriciens et moralistes sociaux de la fin du 18ème siècle et du début du 19ème siècle (Fourier,
Comte, Saint-Simon, Cousin, etc.) jusqu 'au courant positiviste et spiritualiste de la fin du 19ème siècle
et du début du 20ème siècle (Bergson, Boutroux, Fouillée, Durand de Gros, Guyau, etc.). La
préoccupation de nombre de ces théoriciens avec la question de la dégénérescence de la société a
fourni une impulsion importante au désir d'identifier d'une façon scientifique l'étendue des impératifs
moraux dans la vie sociale. Le débat sur l 'essence de la morale avait deux points d'ancrage principaux
: a)peut-on parler d'une morale scientifique dans le sens positiviste, et, b) quelle en est la source
(intuition transcendantale, connaissance rationnelle, la société elle-même) ? En analysant l'influence
de la morale sur la psychologie sociale du 20ème siècle dans les écrits de McDougall Ross, Blondel, et
Allport, l'auteur constate son influence persistante sur plusieurs domaines de la psychologie sociale
moderne.

Abstract
GREGORY MCGUIRE THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF "LA MORALE" AT THE BEGINNINGS OF
MODERN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY IN FRANCE This paper emphasizes the fundamental importance
of the science of "la morale" as modern social psychology developed around the turn of the century. It
is suggested that moral imperatives and influences were seen as vital determinants of social behaviour
on many levels, and that both intrinsic moral factors {l'obligation morale) and extrinsic moral factors (le
devoir moral) provided the foundation for many other social influence factors (imitation, hypnosis and
suggestion, etc.). Focusing on the early development of social psychology and social theory in France,
this paper examines the evolution of the study of la morale from a first group of social theorists and
moralists of the late 18th and early 19th centuries (Saint- Simon, Fourier, Comte, Cousin, etc.) through
a later, more metaphysically and spiritually oriented positivist movement of the late 19th and early 20th
century (Bergson, Boutroux, Fouillée, Durand de Gros, Guyau, etc.). It is argued that fin- de-siècle
concerns over social and societal degeneration provided an important impetus for scientific questioning
of both the scope and the extent of moral imperatives in social life. The debate over the nature of
lamorale first asked whether la morale could be a science in the positivist sense ; it then questioned
whether its ultimate source was transcendental intuition, rational thinking, or society itself. The legacy
of la morale in 20th century formulations of social psychology by Ross, McDougall, Blondel, and F.
Allport leads to the conclusion that la morale continues to influence a wide range of topics in modem
social psychology.
♦♦♦♦♦♦♦ GREGORY R. McGUIRE ♦ ♦♦♦♦♦♦

THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF "LA MORALE"

AT THE BEGINNINGS OF MODERN SOCIAL
PSYCHOLOGY IN FRANCE1

résumé [L'étude scientifique delà morale aux origines de la psychologie sociale

modeme en France] : Dans cet article, on suggère qu 'à la fin du siècle dernier la science
de la morale était d'une importancefondamentale au début de la psychologie sociale moderne.
Les règles et les influences morales étaient envisagées comme des déterminants vitaux du
comportement social à plusieurs niveaux : les éléments moraux intrinsèques (l'obligation
morale) et les éléments moraux extrinsèques (le devoir moral) étaient considérés comme le
fondement de phénomènes comme l'influence social, l'imitation, l'hypnose, et la suggestion,
etc. On examine en détail l'évolution de l'étude scientifique de la morale depuis celle des
théoriciens et moralistes sociaux de la fin du 18ime siècle et du début du 19*"" siècle (Fourier,
Comte, Saint-Simon, Cousin, etcjjusqu 'au courantpositiviste etspiritualiste de lafin du 19***
siècle et du début du 20ime siècle (Bergson, Boutroux, Fouillée, Durand de Gros, Guyau, etc.).
La préoccupation de nombre de ces théoriciens avec la question de la dégénérescence de la
société a fourni une impulsion importante au désir d'identifier d'une façon scientifique
l'étendue des impératifs moraux dans la vie sociale. Le débat sur l 'essence de la morale avait
deux points d'ancrage principaux : a)peut-on parler d'une morale scientifique dans le sens
positiviste, et, b) quelle en est la source (intuition transcendantale, connaissance rationnelle,
la société elle-même) ? En analysant l'influence de la morale sur la psychologie sociale du
20*"" siècle dans les écrits de McDougall Ross, Blondel, et Allport, l'auteur constate son
influence persistante sur plusieurs domaines de la psychologie sociale moderne.

Late 19th century French social psychological theory and research sought to
identify the determinants influencing and governing social interaction (including
such factors as imitation, hypnosis and suggestion, and social facilitation), and
emphasized the manner in which social interaction processes guided or controlled
the behaviour of the individual (Apfelbaum, McGuire, 1986 ; McGuire, 1987a). In

1 . The author expresses gratitude to his colleague Gary Brooks of St. Francis Xavier University for his
extremely helpful comments and suggestions and for his critical examination of an earlier draft of this paper,
and to Ian Lubek for his help and understanding in the editing of this paper.

Sociétés Contemporaines (1993) n° 13 (p. 155-165)

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GREGORY R. MCGUIRE ♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦

fin-de-siècle France, social theory and writings both shared a strong concern about
the possible decline of the French nation, and offered, simultaneously, the beginnings
of what would eventually evolve into modern social psychology. The conceptual
understanding and exploration of many of the factors determining social interaction
processes was influenced, and to a certain extent dominated, by an emphasis on the
positivistic study of "la morale" or "the science of morals", seen by some authors
to offer the underlying foundation for social interactions and behaviour. Thus, the
physician and social theorist Julien Pioger (1893; 1894) stated that morals were the
means by which the individual determines his or her relationships and interactions
with peers. Moral imperatives underlie and affect the very nature of those factors
determining social action and behaviour. Bergson (1932) later argued in Les deux
sources de la morale et de la religion that the obligation to moral social behaviour
is the dominant "social imperative" or guiding force in social life.

"LA MORALE" AS A DETERMINANT OF SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR

Most discussions of "the science of morals" focused on the regulation and

control of social interaction. Two distinct levels of morals, l'obligation morale and
le devoir moral differed principally in terms of the degree of social necessity which
they were presumed to involve. They were most particularly distinguishable by the
presence or absence of positive socially-derived sanctions for compliance or
negative socially-derived sanctions for noncompliance. L'obligation morale is
internally rewarding, conscience-driven and self-justifying, while le devoir moral
is more a social obligation dependent upon the evaluation of behaviour by others
(Marion, 1880) . In many ways, the distinction between l'obligation morale and le
devoir moral thus provides the foundation for the dichotomy between individual,
internal motivation and external, social motivation that would inform subsequent
social psychological theory and research throughout the present century. In
considering the manner by which moral imperatives determine social behaviour, the
question of whether or not social behaviour was due to internal or external factors
presages the eventual discrepancy between psychological and sociological
explanations of social behaviour (cf. Lubek, 1990). In the words of Parodi (1919,
p. 349) : "peut-on encore chercher les fondements de la morale dans la conscience
individuelle ? Ne doit-elle pas être considérée plutôt comme un phénomène
essentiellement social ?"
Morals were of primary importance in determining judgements at both the
individual and social levels of being, and were seen as a fundamental determinant
of both social behaviour and self image.
"La moralité, en un mot, est la résultante de notre activité, de notre vie sociale,
collective, comme la mentalité est la résultante de notre activité sensible,
sensorielle, psychique. Elle est le produit de la sociabilité ou correspondance
sociale des hommes vivant à l'état social, comme la mentalité est le produit de
la sensibilité générale ou correspondance des appareils dans un organisme"
(Pioger, 1894, p. 128).

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 ♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦ THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF "LA MORALE"

"LA MORALE" AS A FOUNDATION FOR SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

Although moral imperatives were considered so pervasive in social behaviour

that the science of la morale was seen as the underlying point of departure for all
disciplines of social science (such as sociology, psychology, political science, and
economics), la morale was considered the least developed of the modern social
sciences due to the complexity of the social phenomena under observation (Janet,
1 9 1 9) . In a later synthesis of the parameters of 1 a morale as a positivistic enterprise,
the psychologist Pierre Janet (1919) suggested that the science of moral study was
ultimately inductive in nature and based strictly on social observation. It incorporated
three distinct components : 1) the observation of moral phenomena (the descriptive
component) ; 2) a theoretical component that seeks the general principles inherent
in these observations by means of reasoning, analysis, and hypothesis ; and 3) a
practical component that applies these principles and derives from them specific
moral requirements (Janet, 1919).

THE EVOLUTION OF THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF "LA MORALE"

There were several attempts to formulate a scientific approach to the study of

morals and moral behaviour prior to the emergence of modern social psychology in
the later half of the nineteenth century. There was of course a very well ingrained
tradition of writing about and identifying moral considerations in French social
thought. However, the earliest instances were largely of a prescriptive nature, such
as the Pensées of Pascal, the Maximes of la Rochefoucauld, or the writings of la
Bruyère (cf Gosse, 1918/1967). It is only in the light of the transition to a more
positivistic and experimental examination of social phenomena as typified by
Comte (Muglioni, 1988) and Fourier (Pages, 1987) that French writings on la
morale took on a more overtly descriptive dimension.
In his Politiques et moralistes du dix-neuvième siècle the literary critic Emile
Faguet (1903) identifies Saint-Simon (1813/1969), Fourier, Lamennais, Ballanche,
Quinet, Cousin ( 1 827/1 878) , and Comte as prominent early moralists and precursors
of the positivist study of la morale that would blossom at the end of the 1 9th century.
However, with the exception of Comte, Fourier, and perhaps Saint-Simon, these
individuals were, for the most part, moral polemicists rather than moral scientists.
A scientific approach to understanding and explicating la morale was hinted at in
many of Comte' s writings, but his plan for an eventual treatise on morals never saw
publication. The positivist study of la morale implicit in Comte' s writings was later
brought to fruition by certain of his disciples, most notably by the mathematician
and philosopher Pierre Lafitte (1906). The importance of moral imperatives was
central to Saint-Simon's explanation of social interaction, as seen in his insistence
that moral imperatives and behaviour were principal causal factors in the existence
of differences between one individual and the next :
"Bien qu'il mit l'accent sur l'économie et qu'il soutienne que la politique
était 'la science de la production', il pensait qu' aucune société ne pouvait exister
sans 'idées morales communes'. Il voulait que savants et artistes jouissent d'un

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GREGORY R. MCGUIRE ♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦

pouvoir égal à celui des industriels dont ils seraient les inspirateurs, et qu'ils
encouragent les masses à de plus grands efforts pour le bien mutuel. Contrairement
aux philosophes du XVTJI*01* siècle pour qui les hommes étaient tous plus ou
moins identiques, et donc égaux, Saint-Simon croyait en leur diversité et leur
unicité" (Zeldin, 1981, p. 91).
A second generation of writers then would go on to add a series of contributions
to the scientific study of la morale, for the most part in the latter half of the 19th
century. This current of thought, later identified by Benrubi ( 1 926) as Metaphysico-
Spiritual Positivism, ran from de Biran (1818/1942), through bachelier (1896),
Boutroux (1908), and Bergson (1932), and its development was perhaps strongest
in the writingsof Fouillée (1883 ; 1895 ; 1908 ; 1913), Guyau (1879 ; 1884 ; 1886),
Durand de Gros (1900 ; 1901), and Pioger (1893 ; 1894).
The theoretical perspective of the Metaphysico-Spiritual Positivist group was
typified by a concern for making the psychological study of moral behaviour
systematic and scientific in terms of the positivist Zeitgeist of the day (Parodi, 1909) .
As conceptualized by these theorists, la morale was presumed to always incorporate
a concern for the social good : "La morale se réduit à une question de solidarité, de
réciprocité ou de dépendance mutuelle" (Pioger, 1894, p. 124). The role of this
group of second generation moral social theorists was therefore to criticize the
actions and behaviours of man, in order to help institute the new moral order
required to regulate the emerging society. In examining this latter group, one notes
not just the cumulative influence of the earlier group of French moralists, but also
the significant influence of English moralists such as Shaftesbury, Hutcheson,
Adam Smith, and Hartley (cf. Guyau, 1879).

THE SOURCE OF "LA MORALE" : SOCIETY, INTUiïlON,ORTHERATIONALINDIVIDUAL?

The rapid increase in theoretical writings about la morale in fin-de-siècle France

may be viewed in the context of both the institutionalization of lay education and
the debate over morals that erupted in the political arena as a result of the Dreyfus
affair. Removing the Catholic domination of the educational system was seen by
some to result in a void in terms of inculcating the younger generations with a sense
of moral behaviour (Parodi, 1919). In the absence of a Church- mandated morality,
the question became one of deciding whether the individual was capable of
determining moral behaviour, or whether a fundamental morality still originated
somehow, external to the individual. This question of the ultimate source of morals
was centrally dominated by the Kantian conception of the pure ideal of a mystical,
irrationally determined sense of moral obligations (Kant, 1781/1976). The Kantian
perspective was filtered into the French debate by writers such as Renouvier
(Marion, 1880) and Boutroux (1908) :
"La morale va donc beaucoup plus loin que la science et, soit par expérience
immédiate, soit par déduction naturelle, 1 ' action morale nous donne sur la nature
et les sources de l'être des connaissances infiniment précieuses que l'on
demanderait vainement à l'entendement pur et simple" (La Fontaine, 1920,
p. 55).

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 ♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦ THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF "LA MORALE"

The opposition to the interpretation of a transcendental source of morals derived

from Kant was most forcefully stated by André Cresson (1902), by Paul Lapie
(1902) — an early collaborator on Durkheim' s Année sociologique — and especially
by the eclectic social theorist and philosopher Alfred Fouillée (1883 ; 1895). The
latter proposed a "materialist morality" that suggested that the moral imperatives
influencing an individual's behaviour were determined by whatever satisfied the
desires of that individual and led to their happiness. Parodi ( who had also been an
early Durkheimian collaborator) would later suggest (1919) that this debate over the
source of contemporary morality would eventually see the emergence of three
distinct interpretations, principally differentiated by the degree to wh:ch la morale
was considered to comprise acceptable positivist science. The first, discussed
above, saw la morale as determined by pure intuition and revelation, derived in part
from the writings of Kant. The second, anti-Kantian interpretation, as typified by
Fouillée, viewed morality as the result of rational consideration on the part of the
individual. The third position, the sociological interpretation of the Durkheim
school, emerged somewhere between these two views, seeing morals as efficient
causes of the social conditions in which they are produced.
According to the sociological school, a "morale scientifique" was not really
possible, but a "science de la morale" was not only possible, it was desirable
(Durkheim, 1893). In other words, there was no such thing as absolute morals in
human behaviour. Instead, any given morality was relative to the society and the
historical period in which it was produced (Parodi, 1919). To a certain extent, the
sociological approach of the Durkheim school represents a compromise between
the rationalist and intuitive positions, although Durkheim and Fouillée engaged in
a fairly heated debate over the source and importance of morals. Durkheim
criticized Fouillée' s views as being much too "simplistic", while Fouillée derided
the way he felt the Durkheim approach removed value judgement from morality and
restricted the discussion to mere description (Lukes, 1973). In attempting to draw
elements from the rationalist and intuitive positions, Rauh (1903) and Belot (1907)
proposed that while society and the historical moment may determine moral
imperatives external to the individual, it is the individual who must make a rational
decision about obeying them.

SOCIAL DEGENERATION AND "LA MORALE"

Deploring the decay of contemporary society was an important aspect of the new
science of la morale ; social degeneration, in f in-de-siècle France, produced heated
sentiments in discussions of social theory, ideology, and research (Apfelbaum,
McGuire, 1986 ; McGuire, 1987a). There was a persistent belief among some that
a lack of moral education and a general acceptance of insufficient moral principles
were causing the downfall of existing society. This view could be seen clearly in
arguments revolving around the moral status of primitive cultures :
"Quiconque voudra sérieusement et consciencieusement comparer l'idée
que nous nous faisons actuellement du bien moral à l'idée qu'ont pu s'en faire
nos ancêtres préhistoriques, quiconque essayera de se rendre compte de l'idée

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GREGORY R. MCGUIRE ♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦

que peuvent s'en faire les Fuégiens et les Tasmaniens, ou d'autres peuplades
sauvages moins arriérées et moins isolées avec lesquelles les voyageurs et les
explorateurs se rencontrent journellement, quiconque prendra la peine ď analyser
les sentiments moraux de nos populations rurales isolées, quiconque, enfin,
daignera se rappeler ses propres idées morales dans son enfance, sera amplement
convaincu de la relativité et du caractère acquis de ces fameuses ' idées morales'
qu'on nous représente comme 'innées', comme supérieures et antérieures, non
seulement à l'expérience, mais à la raison" (Pioger, 1894, p. 140-141).
The overall idea was therefore that civilized culture was based upon a superior
level of morality, and that the perceived decline of French society would therefore
herald a time that would see the debasement of this superior level of morality. A
central issue in this debate concerned the question of whether there was a culturally
relative and learned morality in man's social existence, or whether morals were
instead innate. The fact that France was largely held to have entered a period of
extreme decadence was taken as reinforcement for the idea that morals were
acquired through learning, and not inherited. Some argued that it was not so much
the existence of morals as the quality of moral obligations that differentiated the
primitive culture from the civilized : "There is no savage tribe in which we do not
find the germs of morality; in proportion as peoples rise to the same plane of
civilization, they form moral ideas which resemble each other more and more
closely" (Paul Janet, 1874, 1883, p. 348).
Those who felt that morals were of vital importance in maintaining the advances
and superiority of contemporary society were quick to point out the possible
applications of this knowledge to an extremely large range of contemporary social
issues. On the one hand, there was the progressive view of Marion (1880), who
argued in favour of moral imperatives and moral education as the principal sources
of future social solidarity. This view was echoed by Pierre Janet (1919), who
suggested that the sense of morality possessed by an individual or a society could
be changed through social progress and moral education. At the other extreme, one
finds Duprat's (1902) argument that morals served to ensure the most efficient
operation of society as a whole, with the corollary contention that the welfare and
desires of the individual are, as a result, largely inconsequential. Within both
perspectives, however, the emphasis on the essentially social nature of moral
obligations remained dominant : "La société pleinement morale est quelque chose
de plus. Ici, c'est l'essence même du bien individuel que d'être universel, c'est
l'essence même du bien universel que d'être individuel" (Fouillée, 1908, p. 213).
The idea that the positivistic study of morals that emerged at the end of the
nineteenth century evolved as a response to the perceived decline of traditional
sources of moral authority as embodied by the Church and the State (Devolve, 1910)
was typified by Fouillée's nephew, Guyau, whose L 'irreligion de l'avenir (1886)
was designed to demonstrate that former sources of moral authority were in a state
of dissolution and that, therefore, it was the individual 's responsibility to determine
personal moral requirements and behaviour. There was therefore a substantial need
for what Guyau (1884) had labelled "une morale sans obligation ni sanction". This
view is typical of the pessimistic tendency towards what Leclercq (1947) would
later identify as "la morale cynique".

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"LA MORALE" AND SUBCONSCIOUS DETERMINANTS OF SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR

Theoretical conceptionsof the role of morals in social behaviour disagreed about

the extent to which the individual, before deciding upon a course of social action,
was consciously aware of moral guidelines and took them into deliberate
consideration. In an era in which psychology, and to a lesser extent sociology,
argued about the role of subconscious factors in determining social behaviour, the
question of individual agency and conscious control of social behaviour was of
central importance (Apfelbaum, McGuire, 1985 ; McGuire, 1987a ; 1987b).
The voluminous literature on hypnosis and suggestion provides much material
on the underlying role of moral considerations in social behaviour. One of the
questions during the Nancy/Salpêtrière debates — (which pitted the suggestion
model of Bemheim( 1884/1 886) andLiébault (1866) against the hypnosis model of
Charcot (cf Richer, 1885) — concerned the possibility of hypnotizing an individual
into committing a crime (McGuire, 1987b). It is interesting to note how moral
behaviour patterns and social status were presumed to determine the behaviour of
an individual under hypnosis. As the respective positions of the two schools became
more deeply entrenched, questions about the possibility of hypnotizing an individual
into committing a crime were largely reduced to a simple evaluation of the moral
character of the individual in question. This was particularly the case for the
followers of Charcot, who argued that only an individual who was predisposed to
crime could successfully be hypnotized in this manner. Eventually, this position
was taken to the extreme, such that even the simple predisposition to hypnotizability
became proof positive (for some) that an individual was predisposed to criminal
behaviour (McGuire, 1987a ; 1987b).
The question of whether or not social behaviour responded to moral imperatives
at a conscious or a subconscious level was also central to explorations of the social
psychology of the crowd by Tarde ( 1 893) and Le Bon ( 1 895) . The emergent "crowd
psychology"
extensively adopted models of social influence drawn from the
suggestion and hypnosis models, with a strong emphasis on the moral guidelines (or
lack thereof) which were presumed to motivate crowd behaviour (Apfelbaum,
McGuire, 1985 ; McGuire, 1987a) . In a desire to disqualify and label as illegitimate
the socialist crowds of the day, Le Bon contended that the crowd was by its very
nature immune to the influence of normative morals.
And yet, many of the questions that motivated the positivist model of la morale
were also present in the nascent psychology of the crowd. The hypnosis/suggestion
metaphor allowed these authors to ask whether or not the members of the social
crowd were consciously aware of their actions. Were there fixed, concrete moral
rules that members of the crowd should be held accountable for, or did the moral
imperatives which came into play truly depend on the particular situation ? Did the
members of the crowd rationally evaluate and choose to ignore moral guidelines, or
did these guidelines not enter into consideration ? In attempting to demonstrate that
the socialist crowds did not have legitimate reasons for their behaviour, some of the
early crowd psychologists inevitably drew upon the then-contemporary debate
surrounding the nature of la morale in social behaviour.

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"LA MORALE" AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY IN THE 20TH CENTURY

As social psychology began to evolve at the start of the present century, the
science of la morale continued to play a central role in the explanation of the sources
of social behaviour. In France, the Durkheimian perspective seems to have most
successfully made the transition into the 20th century. This is exemplified by the
seminal discussion of "La Vie Affective" that Charles Blondel included in his
Introduction à la psychologie collective (Blondel, 1927). As Durkheim (1893) had
done over thirty years earlier, Blondel would highlight the importance of public
opinion in determining how the individual judges la morale at any given time. As
well, hereinforced the perceived connection between aesthetic and moral judgements,
as each were predicated upon publicly mandated decisions of good versus bad. In
Blondel' s terms, certain sentiments, including feelings of superiority, morality,
aesthetics, and religion, are decided upon and "commanded" by the collectivity.
When one examines the two works that are generally considered to be the first
comprehensive textbook formulations of modem social psychology in the English
language (Ross, 1908 ; McDougall, 1908), one finds significant differences in the
influence of the positivist science of la morale. Ross most clearly sympathizes with
those moralists who decry the passing of an earlier time of "superior" moral standing
in society. For Ross, "institutions of control" operate most efficiently the longer
they are allowed to endure, and morals are only to be changed very gradually if
society
"rampant"
wishes
individualism
to avoid which
"anarchy
Ross
andsaw
a dissolution
as prevalent
of inmorals".
the United
Above
States
all, and
the
which emphasizes rights over duties was portrayed as the greatest threat to morals
in the modem age (Ross, 1908).
As befits the more psychological perspective of McDougall (1908), morality
and in particular "moral adjustment" were essential to the development of the
healthy individual towards what he termed the "higherplaneof conduct". McDougall
places an interesting pre-behaviourist interpretation on the role of morals in social
behaviour, arguing that morals are learned through rewards and punishment, praise
and blame, and most importantly the accompanying emotions of approval or
indignation. Interestingly, McDougall also presages the moral stages that would
later be proposed by Kohlberg (1976) and Maslow's Need Hierarchy (Maslow,
1954), in his argument that most individuals participate only partially in upholding
moral traditions and will never reach the highest plane of conduct.
With the appearance of American behaviourist social psychology, as codified in
Allport's (1924) Social psychology, la morale seems to fall into the void reserved
by the behaviourists for all determinants of social behaviour that are not objectively
identifiable to the external observer. The only instance where morality makes an
explicit appearance in Allport's textbook is a brief, two page discussion of the
"Moral Consciousness of the Crowd Man", in which the individual crowd members
delude themselves into a sense of escaping moral sanction due to the unlikelihood
of encountering any specific negative consequences for their actions.
As a behaviourist interpretation of social psychology became increasingly
dominant throughout the first half of the present century, more cognitively based

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determinants of social behaviour, particularly those factors believed to be influenced

by societal pressures external to the individual, were generally not considered the
domain of a psychological social psychology. Quite often, however, the role of
moral imperatives in social behaviour remained implicit in the study of a wide range
of alternative social influence processes. Morals as determining factors of human
behaviour are largely subsumed within the categories of more obvious and self-
evident regulators of social behaviour. For example, histories of social psychology
usually make adequate representation of the importance of the early study of
imitation, but there is a tendency to overlook the degree to which imitation itself is
predicated upon a certain degree of moral evaluation of the social other. In a similar
manner, one could list any number of basic social behaviours or factors at the heart
of modem social psychological research (attraction, social evaluation, aggression,
altruism, persuasion, conformity, etc.) in which moral considerations are implicitly
assumed to influence social behaviour.
Questions concerning the role of moral factors and influences upon social
behaviour, although not always explicit, nonetheless continue to underlie many
aspects of modem social psychology's theoretical and research agendas, and are
linked, as well, to broader issues regarding the general state of society which are
shared by concerned citizens and applied social scientists alike. Viewed within this
context, the above historical sketch may suggest that a more systematic exploration
of the importance of moral factors during the formative years of modem social
psychology is required to highlight and unmask their implicit presence and to
evaluate, and restore if necessary, the legacy of "la morale" within modem social
psychology.
GREGORY R. MCGUIRE
St. Francis Xavier University

Mailing address : Psychology Department, St. Francis Xavier University, Antigonish,

Nova Scotia, B2G ICO, Canada

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