Values: Which Theories,Which Methods?

Axiological Sociology under Discussion

Laurence Kaufmann and Philippe Gonzalez are researchers at the Thema group (Théorie sociale, enquête critique, médiations, action publique) of the University of Lausanne and affiliated members of the Centre of studies of social movements (CEMS, IMM, CNRS/EHESS). Kaufmann researches communication and culture by addressing the issue ‘of beliefs, stories and practices in a given community’. ³ Gonzalez is interested in religion and the political domain, and uses an ethnographic approach. ⁴ Together, they have carried out a programme on the social anchoring of religion – ‘S’inscrire dans l’espace public. Approches sociologiques et géographiques des nouveaux paysages religieux’ (Inscribing in the public space: sociological and geographical approaches to new religious landscapes) – which has produced single-authored and co-authored publications as well as other outputs. ⁵ From these scientific skills, they depict a specific vision of the relationship to values, of which we find traces in the discourse that they develop. In particular they add a reflection on emotions.

Favouring a positive reading of Nathalie Heinich’s project, they list several strong points that they do not hesitate to complete or even, in certain cases, correct. Thus, they develop a constructive argument in a four-part contribution that mixes theoretical and methodological dimensions.

The first part of their contribution has a theoretical aim and deals with axiological sociology. They explain why Nathalie Heinich’s distinction between norms and values is so significant. For example, the fact that a value is not necessarily associated with a criterion of efficiency prevents its disqualification during a defect of implementation. Furthermore, if value and efficiency are disjointed, it ensures a form of social dynamism: ‘the tension between the axiological ideal and empirical reality, where it is maintained, gives this idea a driving force precisely because it has not been achieved’. Thus, values direct behaviour without constraining it – in contrast to norms – or even engage individuals in a process of repetition or conformity via regularities.

From the point of view of method, the two researchers specify the inductive part of Nathalie Heinich’s approach. By making controversies and disagreements the privileged basis for her analyses, the sociologist leaves the words, practices and interpretations of the actors, and only engages cautiously in a rise in generality. Through the justifications of the actors in a context of conflict, she brings to light the implicit values that underlie the debates. Beginning from the principle that the public values defended during a controversy are those judged worthy of being expressed in public, she demonstrates the elements of communal culture that unite individuals. Consequently, public values have the status of reasons to act for a collective and in this way are distinguished from private values.

Anticipating criticisms that could challenge this analysis of public values – which would work as a social showcase – Laurence Kaufmann and Philippe Gonzalez develop two aspects that the sociologist could take up: the normative weight of public values and their emotional component with, as a result, a reduced gap between public and private values. It is in the context of these interventions that their previous contributions (Gonzalez and Kaufmann, 2012; Kaufmann and Kneubühler, 2014), which integrate the emotional dimension into the scientific approach, should be understood.

Retaining a touch of humour, Laurence Kaufmann and Philippe Gonzalez write that ‘in a moment of distraction’, Nathalie Heinich likens, in the political context, public values and political waffle. Contrary to this interpretation, they highlight the normative and engaging weight of public values – also designated as ‘meta-values’ – making them a ‘compass’ that the actors summon or ‘implement in a given situation’. ‘These hybrid meta-values [values and norms at the same time] are the place where normative duty to be and the desirable ideal come together, indicating to the actors what their axiological focus must be if they want to participate in the social and political games of their time’.

In fact, if one recognises the normative weight of these public values, the gap between them and private values tends to be reduced through an effort of harmonisation that prolongs the emergence of emotions. From this point of view, indignation is an emotion identified by Nathalie Heinich as possessing a strong tendency to generalisation ‘since the values that fuel it are at least sharable from the outset, and possibly even shared’. And if emotions are felt individually, reasons that are susceptible to make them emerge, or situations where they can be expressed, do not only include a social dimension, but refer implicitly to a norm. On this subject, and like Marcel Mauss (1921), the authors evoked ‘feelings that are appropriate to different social situations’.

Further extending this taking into account of emotions, Laurence Kaufmann and Philippe Gonzalez add the close link that emotions might have with moral values, a ‘third route that is slightly different from the path Nathalie Heinich attempts to clear’ opens up: the concept of axiological affordance, which assumes a form of universality – even if limited – of values. In note 19 of their article, the authors explain that the hypothesis of a universal axiology does not threaten the social and cultural particularity of instantiations. Without calling into question Nathalie Heinich’s model, which opposes all ideas of the universality of moral values, the two authors revise and relax certain aspects of it. According to them, if we invoke the idea of a variation of values – for Nathalie Heinich, values are particularly determined by cultural properties – that can only be carried out in relation to a constant.

A discussion follows concerning Nathalie Heinich’s scientific stance. For the less audacious Laurence Kaufmann and Philippe Gonzalez, the hypothesis is that Nathalie Heinich does not always manage to apply the axiological neutrality of the sociologist, even though she defends this approach. For example, when she proposes that actors believe in the intrinsic property of things, which the two researchers refuse, it legitimises one piece of knowledge compared to another: ‘the sociologist specialising in axiology would know in reality that this is not the case, since value is the result of a collective process of attribution’. In this way, she would approach the stance of ‘Pierre Bourdieu who for his part theorises the ignorance or blindness that most agents possess with regard to the functioning of the social world’. The two researchers add another difficulty to this one: the problem that the inductive approach represents, via the grammatical approach that Nathalie Heinich adopts to study values. In contrast to what the sociologist affirms, defending the idea that the grammarian-sociologist has no power of assessment, Laurence Kaufmann and Philippe Gonzalez consider that this person does indeed proceed to an assessment, ‘if only by relating statements or actions to their frame of reference’. For them, the pragmatic inquiry as the sociologist conceptualises it is tricky and moves away from the principle of neutrality. Their conclusion could have found its place in the first series of ‘Exchanges’ on engagement and the neutrality of the researcher that Questions of communication published in 2003 and 2004. The fact that this aspect is broached today shows that this is not cyclical questioning. It is constitutive of the research.

John Dewey: A Theoretical Resource for Analysing the Field of Values

Like Laurence Kaufmann and Philippe Gonzalez, Louis Quéré is a researcher at the CEMS. An emeritus senior researcher of the CNRS, he directed the Marcel Mauss Institute (EHESS, CNRS) of which the CEMS is a part. One of his research fields is the epistemology of social sciences. In addition, the theories of action, communication and the public space, and the sociology of trust are some of his favourite themes. ⁶ He also stresses the major importance of Nathalie Heinich’s approach, first compared to clarifications that the sociologist brings to the table, but second because according to him a sociologist must not ‘refrain from talking of values and understanding their dynamics and functionality’. Having made this point, Louis Quéré comes to criticisms and proposals. His contribution is structured around seven points to discuss a good part of the summary of his colleague from the EHESS, which we will not revisit in extenso. In most of the arguments developed, the work of John Dewey is used to challenge Nathalie Heinich’s framework.

By nuancing, or even contesting, many of the terms or principles advanced by Nathalie Heinich, Louis Quéré unfolds a highly nuanced thought system. Right from the beginning of his article, he addresses the question of essentialism by considering that Nathalie Heinich ‘rightly proposes escaping essentialism with regard to values’. However, he also considers the gesture from which this current flows, linking this to experience, the environment being a co-operator in this. Moreover, for most terms, he proceeds in the same way, historicising and situating each one as he proposes to do for the values themselves. Drawing on the notions at the heart of John Dewey’s thought, Louis Quéré evokes terms that do not exist in the language used, but that seem to him the most appropriate for treating values. According to him, this is the case with ‘valuer’ and ‘valuation’ ⁷ that, in contrast to ‘value judgements’, could take into account the biological source of the value-qualifications. Indeed, for Louis Quéré, in contrast to Nathalie Heinich who would refuse ‘to consider values as natural occurrences’, values, modes of qualification, and regimes of value are plural. Sociologists are not against nature or culture, because ‘there is no justification for refusing a degree of naturalism’. For him, the ‘valuations’ have ‘a natural, biological basis, i.e. they are part of the instinctive behaviour of living beings in their interactions with their environment’. In the extension of this criticism, he is against the fact that Nathalie Heinich speaks of ‘an axiological experience’. ‘If she means by that a specific type of experience, I believe she has taken a wrong direction: what I have just explained with regard to the omnipresence of “valuations” in behaviours and activities would tend to prove that the “axiological” dimension is more of an inevitable component of any epxerience than a specific type of experience’. The importance of emotions in ‘valuations’, which take body and meaning in a ‘qualitative world’ thus results from this reasoning. On this point, Louis Quéré agrees with one of the arguments made by Laurence Kaufmann and Philippe Gonzalez: ‘it is by these emotions that we realise the things that are dear to us, or important to us, things we cherish or to which we are attached; of again the real content of our momentary orientations, our concerns preferences, objectives and expectations’.

Louis Quéré thus develops a very close critique of the concepts convened by Nathalie Heinich, as well as their scope. He replaces many of them with a vocabulary and conceptual direction that seems fairer to him. For example, in Chapter 6 of her book, which corresponds to the third extract of her contribution under the heading ‘the three meanings of the word “value”’, Nathalie Heinich distinguishes:

For Louis Quéré, the risk of a formulation such as that of the third category is ‘that [it] give[s] credit to those who make values something ultimate, supreme, or absolute things’. Therefore, he rejects the idea of a definite stop, preferring the concept that a value is ultimate in the sense that it is the end point of an investigation. This perspective should be attached to a fundamental aspect of the reasoning of the researcher and seems to be a point of disagreement with Nathalie Heinich: like John Dewey’s (1939) conception, values – but also criteria – relate to contexts, as well as to situations. Values and criteria are not ‘determined a priori and determined independently from practices, they are drawn up and configured as means by their use in situ’. The situation in question is not a place of observation, but a fundamental experiential framework.

Another point of disagreement is Nathalie Heinich’s reconciliation between values and religion. For Louis Quéré, everything depends on the conception that one has of religion. To attest to the variability of the relationship between values and religion, he presents three theoretical approaches: that of Émile Durkheim (2008 [1912]) on the sacralisation of values; that of Hans Joas (2013) on the genesis of values at the founding of the rights of man [sic]; and that of John Dewey (2005 [1934]) on religion envisaged as a practical attitude. Louis Quéré defends and elaborates on Dewey’s conceptualisation, highlighting the role of the experience and the place of emotions in this framework.

There is no surprise upon reading the conclusion which returns to the ‘pragmatisation’ of the field of value as defended by Nathalie Heinich. For example, concerning the question of representations, Nathalie Heinich poses the existence of collective ‘axiological representations’. Louis Quéré adds to this the unavoidable presence of a subject of representations. Placing action at the forefront of this addition, he writes: ‘if we are sensitive to certain values, it is because, via usages and institutions that are contingent, we have developed certain practices, which are socially “valued”’ [« Si nous sommes sensibles à certaines valeurs, c’est parce que, à travers des usages et des institutions, qui sont contingents, nous avons développé certaines pratiques, qui sont socialement ‘valuées’ »]. Thus, values cannot be separated from a specific situation and socially ‘valued’, within which links are established between ‘interactions and social relations, and more broadly modes of co-existence’.

From Neutrality to Axiological Grammar, by way of the Historicisation of an Approach

Danilo Martuccelli is a sociology professor at the Université Paris-Descartes, and a researcher in the Centre de recherche sur les liens sociaux (Cerlis, CNRS). Currently, he is a senior member of the Institut universitaire de France (IUF; Academic Institute of France). He specialises in social theory, the sociology of individuation, and political sociology. ⁸ It should be noted that he had read the whole of the first version of Nathalie Heinich’s book. His contribution is mainly centred on three aspects: axiological neutrality, the question of historical context and its importance for the sociology of values and axiological grammar.

We might think that everything – or nearly everything – has been said concerning axiological neutrality. The contribution of Laurence Kaufmann and Philippe Gonzalez shows that this is not the case. This is also true of the contribution of Danilo Martuccelli, but for other reasons. This researcher explains that the axiological neutrality claimed by Nathalie Heinich does not intervene in theoretical debates between researchers, but concerns ‘the strictly axiological standpoint on the objects of the ordinary world, which disturb researchers’ (Heinich, 2017a: 108–109). However, Martuccelli doubts the relevance of this distinction, considering that the principle is similar in both cases, and is subordinate ‘to the question of truth’, considering that practising good sociology does not necessarily mean adopting a principle of neutrality. Moreover, according to him, no sociologist is exempt from passion. This feeling could prove constitutive, or even ‘necessary for the production of sociological knowledge’. Reasoning in this way, Danilo Martuccelli sees in axiological neutrality a justification for a way of doing sociology and questions why it is given the position of a ‘preferred stance of a sociology of values’. In this way, a historical detour permits a better understanding of the epistemological drivers of contemporary choice. This aim contrasts with the synchronic approach adopted by Nathalie Heinich. Danilo Martuccelli thus attempts to understand what the sociology of values owes to ‘the context of modernity’ thus engaging in ‘the historicising of the foundations of axiological grammar’ (the title of a sub-section of his article).

Behind the axiological neutrality advocated by Nathalie Heinich, Danilo Martuccelli sees ‘one axiological vision’ which is ‘that of a truth-work, based on evidence and controversies, capable of reflexivity and taking distance from the practical issues of the world as they are defined by the actors’. In fact, if there is a vision, we cannot speak of neutrality since, inevitably, adopting this scientific position supposes adhering to it. While taking heuristic precautions, the researcher harks back to the 16th and 17th centuries where, as Stephen Toulmin (1992 [1990]) describes, ‘the consolidation of modern science leads to the intellectual death of humanism’. The position that Nathalie Heinich defends would thus be approaching a historical date characterised by ‘the gradual entry into a social universe where a new historical relationship with the truth is emerging’, a context and the characteristics that he himself has highlighted (Martuccelli, 2015).

Apart from this historicisation, Danilo Martuccelli observes modernity itself, noting that in contemporary societies the relationship with values has changed, the individuals constantly being ‘asked about their “tastes”, “opinions”, and “attachments”’. Thus, he suggests that these changes should be integrated into a sociology of values, just as it seems important to him to take into account ‘a highly “affective” experience of society’ that we know and that would be the label ‘of a personalisation of social phenomena’. Danilo Martuccelli knows what he is talking about. Some of his research relates to these questions (Araujo and Martuccelli, 2012; de Singly and Martuccelli, 2009 Martuccelli, 2010). In his contribution, he develops an aspect that Nathalie Heinich seemed to have downplayed which relates to the feelings and convictions of individuals, and therefore to ‘attachments’. He exemplifies this dimension by drawing food for thought from the political domain. He reminds the reader that when voting, the individual expresses an opinion that ‘translates an evaluation, where in the long-term the adhesion of an individual to a value (or group of values) transpires’. With this gesture, we are far from the only identification with a programme or a political individual: the voters express ‘their’ person at the same time as ‘their’ conviction and ‘their’ intimacy. Consequently, they express ‘their’ attachment. According to Danilo Martuccelli, this should invite the sociology of values to open up to a sociology of attachments.

Finally, the sociologist comes to theoretical and methodological questions, precisely about Nathalie Heinich’s preference for observation, a method that she contrasts with interviews and which allows the researcher to examine ‘[how] evaluation operates […] in situ and in action’. Danilo Martuccelli agrees: this choice makes it possible to ‘defend the autonomy of values vis-à-vis their reduction to interests, to positions or to power relations between the actors’ and to prove its merits. Nevertheless, he argues that Nathalie Heinich neglects a research domain which could bring a lot to the sociology of values, besides the fact that it is not reducible to a critical sociology of domination. It is the sociology of decision-making that analyses the production and the establishment of quantities, namely by examining closely the ‘effective processes of decision-making (Crozier and Friedberg, 1977)’. In this context, ‘rationality’ and ‘value’ can be put together to help to understand the strength of the strategic turning point. As far as Danilo Martuccelli is concerned, this is not a sociology that would be complementary to the sociology of values, but an alternative to it. Indeed, far from the ‘sociology that is critical of social relationships of domination where the positions held would be the analytical key’, research in this vein can highlight areas of uncertainty within which individuals are likely to find and construct their margins of action. Without eliminating values, research in this vein demonstrates ‘somewhat limited function of values in many evaluations in social life’. Thus, the strategic analysis should show that ‘when making decisions, actors are not always driven first by “values” […] On the contrary, most often they co-construct their “aims” in situations; and even if they have “values” at the outset, decisions ultimately depend on committed strategic processes and asymmetries of strength (opportunities, alliances, contexts)’.

Conclusion

The points of view of the participants in these ‘Exchanges’ are partly different from each other, but nevertheless agree on the interest that Nathalie Heinich’s ambitious work generates. Through a focused discussion, the speakers also work to clarify the scientific outlines. Effectively, openness to other theoretical and/or methodological approaches and greater consideration of factors likely to interact with the field of values are several of the lines of thought that Laurence Kaufmann and Philippe Gonzalez, Louis Quéré and Danilo Martuccelli share. Thus, the strong programmatic aim of Nathalie Heinich’s book and the proposals of these sociologists are useful to researchers in several disciplines that make up the humanities and social sciences, particularly researchers interested in informational and communicative processes.

Here are some of the other possible examples from the top 10 areas of interest to the ICS. ⁹ The analysis of debates, polemics and controversies in the public sphere – especially in the political register – can be enriched by the distinctions between the three meanings of the word value, between norms and values, and between orientation and determination. Similarly, it is possible to take advantage of the advances in meta-values, which are anchored to different spheres (certainly political ones, but also others), or contribute to providing the public sphere with a transversal ‘reinforcement’. In this way, values are ‘at the top of political architectonics’. This, combined with research into public arenas (Cefaï, 2016), is of the greatest interest, including the examination of the functioning of media and journalistic worlds, especially given that public space is filled with devices (dispositifs) (surveys, career records, likes etc.), which aim to produce, measure and render visible judgements, tastes and opinions on a growing spectrum of activities and subjects (see Heinich, 2012). Discussions about the relationship between values and emotions (emotions as the perception of values, reasons for acting etc.) are also of great interest, whether this is in the domain of art, heritage, design, cultural industries (especially with the increasing prominence of digital games or gamification), sports, etc. This establishes and enriches connections with various approaches in terms of attachment (including the affectivity implied) and affordances.

In the field of organisational communication – which has often highlighted values carried by businesses or public institutions – these ‘Exchanges’ are beneficial. Not only do they serve to improve understanding of the discourse held in the name of values, they also contribute to enriching the analysis of the decision-making process. They emphasise the respective roles of the positions occupied and the dependence on values, as well as on the areas of uncertainty between these two factors. This shows the interest in the strategic analysis inherited from the sociological works of Michel Crozier and Erhard Friedberg. On the same level, the implications of the work of the economist André Orléan (2011) – one of the participants at the Cral seminar – forces reconsideration, without sinking into economicism, of the role of collective dynamics in the authority granted to values or to that of Luhmannian theories of trust (Luhmann, 2006 [1968]).

Finally, in recent times, ICS researchers have been developing programmes pertaining to religious facts, sacredness or sacralisation (see, for example, the series of articles on ‘sacred figures’, in Questions de communication, 2013, volume 23). The debate initiated here on the recognition or not of religious values as ideals will not fail to resonate. In the same way, the discussion about the role of the creative imagination, referring especially to Charles Taylor (2004), seems to have been left undeveloped, even though beyond the religious, the creative industries reach an almost worldwide public.

While remaining sociological, Des valeurs and these ‘Exchanges’ are marked by arrangements of theories from very different disciplines and currents. Thus, for her subject, Nathalie Heinich shows perfectly how structuralism, interactionism, and constructivism are structured. She also affirms her distance from the critical approach. Specifically, both interdisciplinarity and the critical approach are equally discussed in the ICS community. Furthermore, Questions de communication has occasionally published very lively, muscular ‘exchanges’ on these subjects (First, for texts by Patrick Charaudeau (2010), see volumes 17, 18, 19, 21; and second, in texts by Fabien Granjon (2015), volumes 28, 29, 30). The debate continues regarding methods and results. Following the logic of a pragmatic sociology, Nathalie Heinich relies on observation rather than interviews, pointing out their poor level of performance in this area and the rise of what we call the digital humanities. We can only suggest, this time in the context of the analysis of linguistic discourse and information-communication, ¹⁰ that it is now possible to process a corpus on an unprecedented scale to test the gains of renewed research into values, ¹¹ the consequence being that, even if Nathalie Heinich (2004, 2017a, 2017b) likes the expression ‘to finish with’, we are not yet finished with her ‘Ten proposals on values’.