ESLJ Volume 2 Number 1 Book Reviews
THE STATE AND THE CONTROL OF MORALITY
Governing Morals: A Social History of Moral Regulation
by Alan Hunt.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
Pp.273, £15.95 (pb),
ISBN 0 521 64689 8.
Reviewed by:
GUY OSBORN
School of Law,
University of Westminster
The state has a long history of involvement in moral regulation. Even recently, within the context of the 'New Labour' administration in the United Kingdom, we have seen moves to alter the way that both licensing - 'Time for Reform: Proposals for the Modernisation of our Licensing Law' (2000) Cm.4696 - and gambling - Gambling Review Report (2001) Cm.5206, and D. Miers, 'OFGAM? OFBET? The Regulation of Commercial Gambling as Leisure Industry', Entertainment Law 1/1 (2002), 20-51 - are regulated and the role that the state plays within this process. Even the ability to dance in a commercial space on a Sunday was abrogated by an adherence to an ancient piece of legislation, the Sunday Observance Act 1780, until the advent of the Deregulation (Sunday Dancing) Order 2000, which seemed patently absurd in the third millennium, let alone the second. Alan Hunt's book is a history of moral regulation projects, movements that have as their chief concern 'a desire to regulate everyday life'.
Hunt's approach in the book is to examine historical examples of moral regulation in order that they might provide critical distance from current controversies while hopefully adding to the debate on current issues from a different perspective. As he notes in his 'Preface', 'There seemed little point in adding another contentious voice to the babble of current controversy over any of these moral conflicts. Instead I decided that it might be possible to throw some light on contemporary conflicts by undertaking a study of earlier moral reform campaigns' (p.x). Having set out the theoretical backdrop in the 'Introduction', Hunt selects a number of moral regulation movements for analysis. In selecting these areas, recognition was made of the difficulties of focusing upon certain areas - for example, the consumption of alcohol does not form part of this analysis, at least explicitly, because of the restrictions this would place on the book as a whole, given the inherent complexities of the area and the sheer size of such an undertaking. The chapters cover various areas or movements. For example, Chapter 1 deals with Societies for Reformation of Manners, and Chapter 2 details 'Moral Regulation from Above: The Vice Society'. Other chapters include case studies on 'Sexual Purity and Social Hygiene in Victorian Britain and the USA' (ch.3), and look at the impact of 'feminism dominated' movements (ch.5).
The case studies themselves are well chosen and thoughtful. For example, Hunt illustrates in Chapter 1 how movements such as this should be understood as part of, or linked to, social movement theory, and his analysis makes use of contemporary examples to illustrate this. These Societies 'projected a generalised fear of a profound national crisis whose origin lay in the immorality of the people' (p.34), with the sins they decried including such everyday sins as neglect of public worship and failing to set a good example at home. An excellent table details the range and type of relevant prosecutions under this broad umbrella during the period 1694-1738, citing examples such as sodomy, drunkenness and Sabbath-breaking.
Prosecutions for 'lewd and disorderly behaviour' are by far the most prevalent, very possibly as a result of this covering the activity of street prostitutes. The chapter details the propaganda machine that underpinned the movement and provides a detailed historical excavation of the roots and rationale for the movement, including critiques such as that of Daniel Defoe, who castigated such movements for their working-class bias; the upper classes were seemingly absolved from censure, notwithstanding their own 'corrupt appetites', on the basis that their transgressions were more likely to be behind closed doors and therefore deemed less pernicious.
Such a class-based distinction can be seen in approaches to a number of other areas in which the activities or proclivities of society have been regulated. Perhaps the area of blood sports provides a neat analogy here, with widely differing approaches to the high culture (fox hunting) rather than the low (badger baiting). Again interestingly, this also provides a link into current thinking and prevailing attitudes, with the current moves towards banning or at least restricting fox hunting and the responses of bodies such as the Countryside Alliance with their claims of interference with their livelihood and rights. Here, Defoe's point concerning who becomes the focus of the law - 'These are all Cobweb laws, in which small flies are catch'd, and the great ones break through ... 'Tis hard, Gentlemen, to be punished for a Crime by a man as guilty as ourselves' (p.52) - seems particularly apposite, notwithstanding any moral reprehensibility at such activities that society might have about all such forms of 'sport'.
As Hunt had noted in his 'Introduction', he hoped that his analysis might cast some light on recent developments and movements. Hunt succeeds in this with ease. His final chapter begins to look at the developments within moral politics and regulation towards the present day, via new social campaigns and political valorisation of family values. Interestingly, at the time of writing this review, one such campaign, the Conservative Party 'Back to Basics' policy formulated under John Major in the early 1990s, is coming under the spotlight a decade later because of the affair between the then Prime Minister and Edwina Currie. It is almost trite to note that an understanding of the past helps develop our understanding of the present and how we might engage with issues in the future, but this well written and superbly constructed book does just that and illustrates the value of adapting a theoretical standpoint with which to interrogate future developments. As Hunt himself concludes: 'Contests over projects of moral regulation will continue to provide a significant part of the social and political agenda; the best that we can hope is to restrain the worst excesses while we continue to grapple with the intractable conditions of social life that generate the impulse to subject the conduct of conduct to moral governance'.
This is a book review published online on March 7th 2005.
Citation: Osborn, Guy, 'Governing Morals: A Social History of Moral Regulation by Alan Hunt.', Entertainment and Sports Law Journal (ESLJ) Volume 2, Number 1 <http://www.warwick.ac.uk/go/eslj/issues/volume2/number1/reviews/osborn/>.
