Publication (142 pages).

hen found linked
an intrinsic charressing
several
e most important
haviour has been
s a type of harm
harm’ is importg
or distasteful
mitting it or to
oval by the regl
regulation is a
eparately from
ted understanding
y. The ideologies
hange;
a set of practices, and; a harm to be avoided much in the
same way society is shaped and defined by the members
in it, moral regulation is affected by the ideologies that
exist today. Thus, what may be morally regulated at one
point may not be so in the future, and what was previously
overlooked may become controversial.
Moral regulation lends itself well to a constructivist
perspective of social problems. It already contains claims
and claimants that work to create an ideology and disseminate
it. Similar to constructed social problems,
moral problems include an emphasis on ‘definitional
activities’ that determine a behaviour to be wrong, immoral,
or problematic. Whether the behaviour or situation
is inherently immoral is not of concern, much like
whether or not it is considered objectively problematic;
instead the importance of the perspective relies on definitional
characteristics that are determined by members
of society. Morality relies on subjective characteristics
for its definition, which again makes it a great fit for
a constructivist perspective of social problems. Ideas of
morality are not considered objective; identifying moral
wrongs in society is unlikely without having a subjective
understanding of what moral ideologies are. Both approaches
require a subjective claim to be established before
the moral regulation or the problem identification
can occur; for this reason, many situations that are morally
regulated are subjectively defined social problems.
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