Moral, Believing Animals: Human Personhood and Culture (review)

This book was a joy to read. What Philip Smith has called the "new American cultural sociology" truly picked up pace during the 1990s, but it is only in the past two or three years that scholars have begun to produce broad statements addressing fundamental questions such as: What is cultural sociology? What is an appropriate definition of culture for sociologists? How does culture interact with other fundamental dimensions of social life, like individuals and institutions? And, in the case of Moral, Believing Animals, What is it about human nature that makes culture such a sociologically powerful concept?

The book's core argument is that human beings are inherently moral, believing animals, and each chapter explores a dimension or implication of this idea. Smith's main concern is with motivations for action: why do people do what they do? In arguing that we are moral animals, he is saying that one of our central motivations is to act out and sustain moral order; that institutions and cultural systems at the macro level, and actions and practices at the micro level, are all moral in that they are all oriented toward assorted assumptions about the right, the good, the worthy, the just. In arguing that we are believing animals, he is reminding us that all our knowledge relies ultimately on what philosophers might call "first principles," that is, on foundational assumptions that provide the grounds of verification for knowledge, but that cannot themselves be proven or verified. Smith points out, for example, that much of modern life (and modern sociology) depends on unverifiable assumptions associated with liberal democratic capitalism, such as the assumption that people are, at root, materially oriented goal seekers. This assumption is so pervasive and (for people living in a capitalist moral order) so comfortable that explanations that use it seem somehow immediately compelling and satisfying, and explanations that do not seem somehow insufficient, suspect, or naïve.

Smith develops several implications of his moral model of human nature. He argues, first, that as moral, believing animals, people are also storytellers, or as he says, narrators; that contrary to claims of assorted modernists and postmodernists, narrative is still fundamental to human life. Second, he addresses two fundamental questions in the theory of religion. What is religion, and why are people religious? Smith's definition of religion draws on and resonates with many previous definitions, while also attempting greater accuracy and more brevity than previous definitions. He defines religions as "sets of beliefs, symbols, and practices about the reality of superempirical orders that make claims to organize and guide human life." In light of his previous arguments, this definition lends insight into both secularization and religious persistence.

Smith advocates a theory — or rather, two theories — of religious origins, both meant to dispel sociobiological and rational choice counterparts. His first theory is, as he says, supremely parsimonious, but also highly suspect within our modern academic narrative: maybe religions have always existed so pervasively because some superempirical order actually exists. A serendipitous page break leads the reader to suspect that Smith is going to stop there. He goes on, however, to articulate a second theory that is, as he says, accessible to a broader audience, and has the added advantages of being a standard among certain philosophers and theologians, as well as resonating with cultural theory and with the anthropology that Smith has laid out. Simply put: as many cultural theorists have noted, meaning depends on context; all things are only interpretable within a context. To get at the meanings of broad existential events like life, love, suffering, and death, as well as history and the passage of time, we need a context that transcends our ordinary social-historical horizons. Religions offer the superempirical context within which we can grapple with the big questions.

By laying out a morally centered understanding of human nature, Smith has a twofold mission, possibly conceivable in terms of a two-by-two table: On one hand, we have a whole host of...