Vandenberghe, F. (2017). Sociology as moral philosophy (and vice versa). The Canadian Review of Sociology, 54(4), 405-422. doi:10.1111/cars.12168

This transition from the normative to the empirical is only possible if one does not oppose philosophy to sociology, but rather integrates them into something like a “descriptive ethics” (along the lines perhaps of “descriptive metaphysics”). 

 Sociologists should study those philosophical systems as moral repertories that are part of Western culture.11 Varying a well‐known phrase of Paul Ricoeur—“to explain more to understand better” (Ricoeur 1986:22)—we could say that the point of this detour via philosophy is to prescribe more in order to describe better, and also, conversely, to describe more in order to prescribe better and ground one's judgments in the critical sense of the actors.

this doesn't seem like it'd work for me though

maybe he is saying, we need to understand morality so that we can properly judge these people?

 no cognition (Erkennung) without recognition (Anerkennung) of principles, norms, and values.

we do not first describe and then judge, but it is by judging them that we describe and identify them as actions of a certain sort, namely as “performances,” that is as “actions that can only be identified as appropriate, felicitous, or successful” (Louch 1966:233). These are value‐judgments, to be sure, but they are also descriptive.

Parsons for his part rejected utilitarian consequentialism and sought, through a synthesis of Kant and Christian ethics, to restore a common system of ultimate ends.

To develop a moral sociology worthy of its name, one has, however, first to break down the disciplinary barrier between sociology and philosophy and overcome the reticence and resistance of professional, critical, and public sociologists to engage in some constructive “border thinking.”4 While most would probably agree that sociology entails a normative project, grounded in a slightly nostalgic liberal‐communitarian worldview, few would actually be willing to spell out that project and launch a philosophical inquiry into its normative foundations.5

Vandenberghe, F. (2018). Sociology as practical philosophy and moral science. Theory, Culture & Society, 35(3), 77-97. doi:10.1177/0263276417709343

 The two are related, but to the extent that moral philosophy presupposes an actor who deliberates and evaluates, practical philosophy comes first. 

For social scientists who are wary of invocations of classic philosophers they have not read and who doubt that it is not only possible, but also necessary and desirable, to look for rational foundations of normative principles, let me connect practical philosophy more directly to sociology. 

["Instrumental" and "value rationality" are terms scholars use to identify two ways humans reason when coordinating group behaviour to maintain social life. Instrumental rationality recognizes means that "work" efficiently to achieve ends. Value rationality recognizes ends that are "right," legitimate in themselves.

These two ways of reasoning seem to operate separately. Efficient means are recognized inductively in heads or brains or minds. Legitimate ends are felt deductively in hearts or guts or souls. Instrumental rationality provides intellectual tools—scientific and technological facts and theories—that appear to be impersonal, value-free means. Value rationality provides legitimate rules—moral valuations—that appear to be emotionally satisfying, fact-free ends. Every society maintains itself by coordinating instrumental means with value rational ends. Together they make humans rational.]

By judging oneself as one would like to be judged by others, thus through the detour of a benevolent other (the so-called ‘impartial and sympathetic observer’), one becomes moral and virtuous: ‘No action can properly be called virtuous, which is not accompanied with the sentiment of self-approbation’ (Smith, 1976: III, 6–13). Thanks to the mechanism of sentimental decentring, one can better understand what motivates actors to go out of themselves to care about or communicate with others.

[but B & T aren't about becoming moral, there's no empathy in there, morals are the backdrop? it's certainly about rational? actors? making choices, ... are morals the means? ]

[btw, you'll have to do a kind of problem/solution thing with tech comm. so the problem will surely have to be with ANT or AT]