Berard T J (1998) Attributions and Avowals of Motive in the Study of Deviance: Resource or Topic?

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Attributions and Avowals of Motive in the Study of Deviance: Resource or Topic?

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CONTRIBUTORS:

Author:

Berard T J (Kent State University)

JOURNAL:

Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 28(2), 193 - 213.

YEAR:

1998

PUB TYPE:

Journal Article

SUBJECT(S):

motives, accounts, deviance, ethnomethodology, philosophy of social science

DISCIPLINE:

Sociology

HTTP:

LANGUAGE:

English

PUB ID:

103-395-135 (Last edited on 2003/10/01 12:07:15 GMT-6)

SPONSOR(S):

ABSTRACT:
This paper argues that the study of motives in human behavior and the explanation of human behavior stands in need of a critical and analytical reorientation. The argument builds upon criticisms of relevant literature, including sociological literature on accounts and philosophical literature on the explanation human action. It is argued that motives are a specific variety of explanatory concepts, which are logically as well as empirically tied to deviant or problematic behavior. It follows from this that that the explanation of human action by means of motives is a practical and evaluative activity rather than a scientific method. Ethnomethodologists and other qualitative sociologists following the insights of Wittgenstein or C. Wright Mills suggest a method of conceptualizing and studying motives in a distinctively analytic manner, without engaging in moralistic explanation. The proposed analytic approach treats motives as one of several alternative cultural resources for mundane social explanation (including causes and justifications) which are used along with characterizations of action, identity, and context, for practical purposes. Finally, it is argued that motives should not be understood as operating prior to or discrete from other scenic details such as identity, action, and context, but that these are all mutually constitutive elements of a whole which is socially constructed or practically achieved in no necessary temporal order, and therefore must be analyzed in a holistic rather than linear manner. The practical logic of mundane, practical explanation is suggested to be complex and subtle, requiring further study and explication.

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