Morality precedes society and society merely manipulates an already-existing moral structure

Evidence

Responsibility being the existential mode of the human subject, morality is the primary structure of intersubjective relation in its most pristine form, unaffected by any non-moral factors (like interest, calculation of benefit, rational search for optimal solutions, or surrender to coercion). The substance of morality being a duty towards the other (as distinct from an obligation), and a duty which precedes all interestedness – the roots of morality reach well beneath societal arrangements, like structures of domination or culture. Societal processes start when the structure of morality (tantamount to intersubjectivity) is already there. Morality is not a product of society. Morality is something society manipulates – exploits, re-directs, jams. — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 514

Categorization

• DEFINE: Sharpens the Levinasian claim: morality as pre-societal primary structure vs. obligation/duty distinction—a load-bearing conceptual distinction.
• XREF: Directly feeds the Islamophobia field’s toolkit: society as manipulator of pre-existing morality parallels how racialized ‘Othering’ requires social administration of intersubjectivity. — connects to: Individual moral judgment can remain intact without any supporting social rules — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 603; Sociology treats social learning as the unexamined root of all human morality — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 601; Social organization displaces autonomous moral drive with instrumental and procedural rationality — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 612 (+19 more)

Related

• Moral capacity arises socially but not from societal institutions (similarity 0.87)
• Socialization manipulates but never produces moral capacity (similarity 0.86)
• Sociology treats social learning as the unexamined root of all human morality (similarity 0.85)
• Modern societal organization can weaken moral drives and make immorality more plausible (similarity 0.85)
• Individual moral judgment can remain intact without any supporting social rules (similarity 0.83)
• Durkheim’s sociology holds that all morality originates in society’s coercive civilizing force (similarity 0.83)
• Moral responsibility can compel insubordination to socially upheld principles (similarity 0.83)
• Under modern order moral behavior often means resisting societal authority (similarity 0.82)
• Social organization displaces autonomous moral drive with instrumental and procedural rationality (similarity 0.82)
• Orthodox sociology assumes social regulation produces morality and restrains savagery (similarity 0.82)
• Modern society weakens morality through distance, technical responsibility, and segregation (similarity 0.82)
• Sociology reduces morality to derivative products of non-moral social institutions (similarity 0.82)
• Levinasian responsibility precedes knowledge and intention unconditionally. (similarity 0.82)
• Sociology mirrored modern society by banishing ethical problematics from its discourse (similarity 0.81)
• Moral resistance is personal while immorality requires social production (similarity 0.81)

Broader Connections

• Moral obligations derive from objective ideality, not from society or individual will #corroborates (0.85) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 356
• Morality is an evolved sense of fairness, not a late intellectual achievement #corroborates (0.80) — Nicolas Baumard, A mutualistic approach to morality, 656