18 September 1912

I am reproducing here an entry from RH Tawney’s Commonplace Book which was written exactly 100 years ago today. It is one of the longer entries in the book, & the division into paragraphs is mine, to make it easier to read on a screen.



18 September 1912. I am inclined to think that a great deal of thought & discussion which goes by the name of sociology has very little value so far as the improvement of human life is concerned, not because it is untrue, not because the problems with which it deals are unimportant, but because information – of a more or less speculative character, about the probable consequences & tendencies of human arrangements is, by itself, not very likely to make those arrangements better. What is needed for the improvement of society is not so much that men should have profound information as to the possible result of their actions, but that they should have a keen sense of right & wrong, that they should realise that the conceptions of ‘right & wrong’ apply to all relations of life, including those where their application is most inconvenient, such as those of business, & that they should act on their knowledge.

More knowledge we’ll certainly need. But what we need still more is the disposition to act on the knowledge which we possess; & I am disposed to complain with regard to sociologists generally that they concentrate attention on remote consequences instead of on immediate duties, that they substitute inexpediency for sin & social welfare for conscience, & that then the world instead of feeling that it is a miserable sinner, flying from the city of Destruction, escapes its responsibilities today by speculating n the probabilities of the future.

Now I do not complain of all this intellectual activity being applied to tracing out social actions & reactions. What I do want to drive home is that our conduct in particular cases is, & must always be, very largely independent of it, & that therefore the first step towards an improvement in social life is to judge our social conduct by strict moral standards. I venture to say – though it sounds heresy – that there are certain sorts of behaviour which we know to be right, & certain others which we know to be wrong. Let us act on what we know.

We know it to be wrong for one man to live as though the effects of his actions upon his neighbours did not concern him. We know it to be wrong for one man to deceive another in order that thereby he may obtain pecuniary advantage. We know it to be wrong for one man to take advantage of the weakness of another in order to wring out of him terms to which he would not submit if he were a free agent.

This knowledge is, I would urge, the common property of the Christian nations. If it is asked, on what it is based, I answer that it is based on the experience of life in all the principal nations of Western Europe, & that its validity is shown by the fact that when these propositions are stated in general form, nobody in practice would venture to deny them. Not only so, nobody, in practice, would think it necessary to appeal to the consequences of neglecting them in order to prove their validity, though it is, I suppose, on the consequences of neglecting them that their validity ultimately rests.

Very well then – what is the task of the sociologist? It is [I] submit to show how these universally accepted principles may be applied to particular sets of social conditions. It is in fact analogous to the business of a jurist. A jurist builds up the body of laws, by bringing new cases, as they arise, under some of the general principles of his science. A sociologist ought to build up his science by bringing new economic cases under some of the rules of conduct generally accepted by civilised men. This does not appear to me to be done at the present time. What is happening is that there is great activity in investigation both inductive & deductive ( - to use bad words - ). But that the new facts are largely useless so far as conduct is concerned, because they are not grouped under established principles by [which] most men admit their conduct should be controlled.

Let me take one or two examples: What were the reasons for the abolition of slavery? (I have no special knowledge on this point & must look it up) They were, I suppose, that a body of opinion which arose which held that the employment of one man by another as a tool was immoral, & that this body of opinion became sufficiently powerful to convert the majority of persons, who had never realised that slavery implied this, & those who, if they realised it, had never made in their minds the connection between this fact & any accepted principle of morality, in such a way as to reveal to them that the fact & the principle were inconsistent.

The reason for the abolition of slavery was certainly not that after calculation the advocates of the change arrived at the conclusion that its abolition was more profitable than its maintenance. They acted as they did because they believed slavery to be wrong, & believing it to be wrong determined to get rid of it irrespective of whether the result would diminish or increase – it actually increased – the productive capacity of the slave or the profits of the quondam slave-owner.

Now let us turn from this example to another. Everyone at the present day knows a large number of persons are paid wages which makes it extremely difficult to live virtuous lives. They are tempted to neglect their duties to their families because it’s so hopeless to discharge them, or to be mean for fear of neglecting them, or to be quite casual because they will not be mean, according to their temperament. In practice the vices of slave labour tend to appear among them. They feel they are treated unjustly: they have no prospects; & the employer tries to make up for the absence of other incentives by close supervision. We are, in fact, as I am inclined to say, faced with a problem analogous to, though different from, that which confronted the Abolitionists.

How far is it possible for us to approach it in the same spirit?


RH Tawney’s Commonplace Book ed & intro JM Winter DM Joslin CUP1972
£2 UK $6.50 USA!!!