Morale Statistics
In the 19th century and early 20th century, that branch of statistics was called moral statistics , which dealt with the publicly perceptible acts of will of humans, for example marriages , births or delinquency . The inner motives for these actions were not recorded.
The main component was the crime statistics , which recorded the criminal acts, their statistical determination with regard to the number and type of criminal acts pending in court, age, gender, status of the accused and convicted as well as the sentences imposed. The moral statistics also concerned the statistics of actions that were regarded as immoral, but were not punishable or could not be punished. Certain regularities were initially explained by natural laws in the sense of social physics , later recognized as the consequences of certain, usually clearly demonstrable social or legislative processes. External circumstances such as the natural environment and social conditions exerted a great influence on resolutions and actions, but they could not be demonstrated as an imperative for such actions by the individual or for the masses.
The moral statistics were based on the work of the Belgian Adolphe Quetelets , who made forecasts for society as a whole based on his surveys . In German-speaking countries, among others, Adolph Wagner , Georg Friedrich Knapp , Gustav von Rümelin and Wilhelm Lexis dealt with moral statistics. Émile Durkheim , for example, used Adolphe Wagner's empirical data for his work on suicide .
literature
- Monika Böhme: The moral statistics. A contribution to the history of quantification in sociology, illustrated by the works of Adolphe Quetelet and Alexander von Oettingen . Böhlau, Cologne, Vienna 1971. ISBN 978-3-412-93771-3
- Otthein Rammstedt : Moral statistics , In: Werner Fuchs-Heinritz and others (ed.) Lexicon for sociology . 5th edition, Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2011. ISBN 978-3-531-19670-1
Web links
- Alexander Konstantin von Oettingen : The moral statistics in their meaning for a social ethics . Deichert, Erlangen 1882. Digitized
- Bettina Heintz: World creation through numbers. Models of political differentiation in international statistics, 1948-2010 Soziale Systeme 2012, pp. 7–39
- Bernd Belina , Mélina Germes: Crime mapping as a method of critical criminology? KrimJ , December 16, 2015
Individual evidence
- ^ Moral statistics Friedrich Kirchner, Carl Michaëlis: Dictionary of basic philosophical terms. Leipzig 1907, p. 375
- ^ Moral statistics Brockhaus' Kleines Konversations-Lexikon, 5th edition, Volume 2. Leipzig 1911, p. 212
- ↑ Thomas Feuerstein: Quêtelet'scher Demon Website DAIMON , accessed on November 1, 2017
- ^ Moral statistics Meyers Großes Konversations-Lexikon, Volume 14. Leipzig 1908, pp. 131–132
- ↑ Wilhelm Lexis: Theory of population and moral statistics. Jena 1903