If a
scientist states it as an axiom [p.418] that the sensations of heat and
light which we feel correspond to some objective cause, he does not
conclude that this is what it appears to the senses to be. Likewise, even
if the impressions which the faithful feel are not imaginary, still they
are in no way privileged intuitions; there is no reason for believing that
they inform us any better upon the nature of their object than do ordinary
sensations upon the nature of bodies and their properties. In order to
discover what this object consists of, we must submit them to an
examination and elaboration analogous to that which has substituted for the
sensuous idea of the world another which is scientific and conceptual.
This is precisely what we have tried to do, and we have seen that this
reality, which mythologies have represented under so many different forms,
but which is the universal and eternal objective cause of these sensations
sui generis
out of which religion is made, is society. We have shown
what moral forces it develops and how it awakes the sentiment of a refuge,
of a shield and of a guardian support which attaches the believer to his
cult. It is that which raises him outside himself; it is even that which
made him. For that which makes a man is the totality of the intellectual
property which constitutes civilisation, and civilisation is the work of
society. Thus is explained the preponderating role of the cult in all
religions, whichever they may be. This is because society cannot make its
influence felt unless it is in action, and it is not in action unless the
individuals who compose it are assembled together and act in common. It is
by common action that it takes consciousness of itself and realises its
position; it is before all else an active cooperation. The collective ideas
and sentiments are even possible only owing to these exterior movements
which symbolise them, as we have established. (footnote: see above, pages
230 following). Then it is action that dominates the religious life,
because of the mere fact that it is society which is its source.
Durkheim, E. 1914a The Dualism of Human Nature and its Social
Conditions
Durkheim1914a p.325
Although
sociology is defined as the science of
societies, it cannot, in
reality, deal with the
human groups that are the immediate object of its
investigation without eventually touching on the
individual who is the
basic element of which these groups are composed. For society can exist
only if it penetrates the
consciousness of individuals and fashions it in
"its image and resemblance." We can say, therefore, with assurance and
without being excessively dogmatic, that a great number of our mental
states, including some of the most important ones, are of social origin. In
this case, then, it is the whole that, in a large measure, produces the
part; consequently, it is impossible to attempt to explain the whole
without explaining the part - without explaining, at least, the part as a
result of the whole.
The supreme product of collective activity is that ensemble of intellectual
and moral goods that we call
civilisation; it is for this reason that
Auguste Comte referred to sociology as the science of
civilisation. However, it is civilisation that has made
man what he is; its is what distinguishes him from the animal:
man is man only because he is civilised.
To look for the causes and conditions upon which civilisation depends is,
therefore, to seek out also the causes and conditions of what is more
specifically human in man.
And so sociology, which draws on
psychology and could not do without it, brings to it, in a just
return, a contribution that equals and surpasses in importance the service
sit receives from it.
It is only by historical analysis that we can discover what makes up man,
since it is only in the course of history that he is formed.
Durkheim1914a p.326
The body is an integral
part of the material universe, as it is made known to us by sensory
experience; the abode of the soul is elsewhere, and the soul tends
ceaselessly to return to it. The abode is the world of the sacred.
Therefore, the soul is invested with a dignity that has always been denied
the body, which is considered essentially profane, and it inspires those
feelings that are everywhere reserved for that which is divine. It is made
up of the same substance as are the sacred beings: it differs from them
only in degree. A belief that is as universal and permanent as this cannot
be purely illusory. There must be something in man that gives rise to this
feeling that his nature is dual, a feeling that men in all known
civilisations have experienced. Psychological analysis has, in fact,
confirmed the existence of his duality: it finds it at the very heart of
our inner life.
Durkheim1914a p.327
Our sensory appetites are necessarily egoistic: they have our individuality
and it alone as their object.
Conceptual thought and moral activity are distinguished by the fact that
the rules of conduct to which they conform can be universalised.
Morality begins with disinterest, with attachment to something other than
ourselves.
When one thinks through the concepts that he receives from the community,
he individualises them and marks them with his personal imprint, but there
is nothing personal that is not susceptible to this type of
individualisation.
Durkheim1914a p.328
There is in us a being
that represents everything in relation to itself and from its own point of
view; in everything that it does, this being has no other object but
itself. There is another being in us, however, which knows things.as if it
were participating in some thought other than its own, and which, in its
acts, tends to accomplish ends that surpass its own. The old formula homo
duplex is therefore verified by the facts. Far from being simply, our inner
life has something that is like a double center of gravity. On the one hand
is our individuality - and, more particularly, our body in which it is
based; on the other hand is everything in us that expresses something other
than ourselves. Not only are these two groups of states on consciousness
different in their origins and their properties, but there is a true
antagonism between them. They mutually contradict and deny each other.
We cannot live without representing to ourselves the world around us and
the objects of every sort which fill it. And because we represent it to
ourselves, it enters into us and becomes part of us. Consequently, we value
the world and are attached to it just as we are to ourselves.
Durkheim1914a p.329
Absolute
egoism, like absolute
altruism, is an
ideal limit which can never
be attained in reality. Both are states that we can approach indefinitely
without ever realizing them completely.
The result is that we are never completely in accord with ourselves for we
cannot follow one of our two natures without causing the other to suffer.
Our joys can never be pure; there is always some pain mixed with them; for
we cannot simultaneously satisfy the two beings that are within us. It is
this disagreement, this perpetual division against ourselves, that produces
both our grandeur and our misery: our misery because we are thus condemned
to live in suffering; and our grandeur because it is this division that
distinguishes us from all other beings.
Durkheim1914a p.330
... man is one, and if there are serious strains within him, it is because
he is not acting in conformity with his nature. If properly interpreted, a
concept cannot be contrary to the sensation to which it owes its existence;
and the moral act cannot be in conflict with the egoistic act, because,
fundamentally, it derives from utilitarian motives.
It is still true that at all times man has been disquieted and malcontent.
He has always felt that he is pulled apart, divided against himself.
Durkheim1914a p.331
We cannot admit that this universal and chronic state of malaise is the
product of a simple aberration, that man has been the creator of his own
suffering, and that he has stupidly persisted in it, although his nature
predisposed him to live harmoniously.
Durkheim1914a p.332
If we reject the theories which eliminate the problem rather than solve it,
the only remaining ones that are valid and merit examination are those
which limit ourselves to affirming the fact that must be explained, but
which do not account for it.
Durkheim1914a p.333
To say that we are double because there are two contrary forces in us is to
repeat the problem in different terms; it does not resolve it.
We understand even less how these two worlds which are wholly opposite, and
which, consequently, should repulse and exclude each other, tend,
nevertheless, to unite and interpenetrate in such a way as to produce the
mixed and contradictory being that is man; for it seems that their
antagonism should keep them apart and make their union impossible.
Durkheim1914a p.334
... we think that sensations are inferior forms of our activity, and we
attribute a higher dignity to reason and moral activity which are the
faculties by which, so we are told, we communicate with God.
Durkheim1914a p.335
Even to the secular mind,
duty, the moral imperative, is something august and sacred; and reason, the
indispensable ally of moral activity, naturally inspires similar feelings.
The ideas and sentiments that are elaborated by a collectivity, whatever it
may be, are invested by reason of their origin with an ascendancy and an
authority that cause the particular individuals who think them and believe
in them to represent them in the form of moral forces that dominate and
sustain them. When these ideals move our wills, we feel that we are being
led, directed, and carried along by singular energies that, manifestly, do
not come from us but are imposed on us from the outside.
Durkheim1914a p.336
Once the group has dissolved and the social communion has done its work,
the individuals carry away within themselves these great religious, moral,
and intellectual conceptions that societies draw from their very hearts
during their periods of greatest creativity.
Durkheim1914a p.337
It is not without reason,
therefore, that man feels himself to be double: he actually is double.
There are in him two classes of states of consciousness that differ from
each other in origin and nature, and in the ends towards which they aim.
One class merely expresses our organisms and the objects to which they are
most directly related. Strictly individual, he states of consciousness of
this class connect us only with ourselves, and we can no more detach them
from us than we can detach ourselves from our bodies. The states
consciousness of the other class, on the contrary, come to us from society;
they transfer society into us and connect us with something that surpasses
us. Being collective, they are impersonal; they turn us toward ends that we
hold in common with other men; it is through them and them alone that we
can communicate with others. It is, therefore, quite true that we are made
up of two parts, and are like two beings, which, although they are closely
associated, are composed of very different elements and orient us in
opposite directions.
Durkheim1914a p.338
In brief, this duality corresponds to the double existence that we lead
concurrently: the one purely individual and rooted in our organisms, the
other social and nothing but an extension of society. The origin of the
antagonism that we have described is evident from the very nature of the
elements involved in it. The conflicts of which we have given examples are
between the sensations and the sensory appetites, on the one hand, and the
intellectual and moral life, on the other, and it is evident that passions
and egoistic tendencies derive from our individual constitutions, while our
rational activity - whether theoretical or practical - is dependent on
social
causes. We have often had occasion to prove that the rules of morality are
norms that have been elaborated by society; the obligatory character with
which they are marked is nothing but the authority of society,
communicating itself to everything that comes from it.
There is no doubt that if society were only the natural and spontaneous
development of the individual, these two parts of ourselves would harmonize
and adjust to each other without clashing and without friction: the first
part, since it is only the extension and, in a way, the complement of the
second, would encounter no resistance from the latter. In fact, however,
society has its own nature, and, consequently, its requirements are quite
different from those of our nature as individuals: the interests of the
whole are not necessarily those of the part. Therefore, society cannot be
formed or maintained without our being required to make perpetual and
costly sacrifices. Because society surpasses us, it obliges us to surpass
ourselves; and to surpass itself, a being must, to some degree, depart from
its nature - a departure that does not take place without causing more or
less painful tensions.
Durkheim1914a p.339
... since the role of the
social being in our single selves will grow ever more important as history
moves ahead, it is wholly improbable that there will ever be an era in
which man is required to resist himself to a lesser degree, an era in which
he can live a life that is easier and less full of tension. To the
contrary, all evidence compels us to expect our effort in the struggle
between the two beings within us to increase with the growth of
civilisation.
Durkheim, E. 1914/1955 Pragmatism and Sociology
Durkheim1914/1955 par.15.1
Before examining the value of pragmatism as a form of logical
utilitarianism, let us look first at the characteristics of truth. We see
at once that it is linked to:
1 a moral obligation. Truth cannot be separated from a certain moral
character. In every age, men have felt that they were obliged to seek
truth. In truth, there is something which commands respect, and a moral
power to which the mind feels properly bound to assent;
2 a de facto necessitating power. There is a more or less physical
impossibility of not admitting the truth. When our mind perceives a true
representation, we feel that we cannot not accept it as true. The true idea
imposes itself on us. It is this character that is expressed in the old
theory of the evident nature of truth; there emanates from truth an
irresistible light.
Durkheim1914/1955 par.15.2
Is pragmatism, as a form of logical utilitarianism, capable of explaining
these two characters? It can explain neither of them.
1 Seeking the useful is following nature, not mastering it or taming it.
There is no place here for the moral constraint implied in the idea of
obligation. Pragmatism indeed cannot entail a hierarchy of values, since
everything in it is placed on the same level. The true and the good are
both on our level, that of the useful, and no effort is needed to lift
ourselves to it. For James, the truth is what is 'expedient', and it is
because it is advantageous that it is good and has value. Clearly this
means that truth has its demands, its loyalties, and can give rise to
enthusiasm, but at the level of the useful, this enthusiasm is only related
to what is capable of pleasing us, that which is in conformity with our
interests.
2 Nor is it possible to see how pragmatists could explain the necessitating
character of truth. Pragmatists believe that it is we who construct both
the world and the representations which express it. We 'make' truth in
conformity with our needs. How then could it resist us? Pragmatism no doubt
accepts that beneath those intellectual constructions which make up truth
there is nevertheless a prime matter which we have not created. For
pragmatism, however, this prime matter is only an ideal limit which we
never reach, although we always tend towards it. It is wiser, says
Schiller, to ignore it, since absolute truth could 'give us no aid', and is
rather an obstacle to a more adequate knowledge of realities which are in
effect accessible to us. Besides that prime matter, there is of course the
whole system of mental organisation, acquired truths and 'previous truths'.
But that is 'a much less obdurately resisting factor' which 'often ends by
giving way': ideas are soft things, which we can twist as we like when
there is no objective reality (provided by sensations) which prevents us
from doing so.
In short, when pragmatists speak of truth as something good, desirable and
attractive, one wonders whether a whole aspect of it has not escaped them.
Truth is often painful, and may well disorganise thought and trouble the
serenity of the mind. When man perceives it, he is sometimes obliged to
change his whole way of thinking. This can cause a crisis which leaves him
disconcerted and disabled. If, for example, when he is an adult, he
suddenly realises that all his religious beliefs have no solid basis, he
experiences a moral collapse and his intellectual and affective life is in
a sense paralysed. This sense of confusion has been expressed by Jouffroy
in his famous article Comment les dogmes finissent. Thus the truth is not
always attractive and appealing. Very often it resists us, is opposed to
our desires and has a certain quality of hardness.
3 Truth has a third character, and one which is undeniable: impersonality.
The pragmatists themselves have indicated this. But how can this character
be reconciled with their definition of truth? It has been said, with some
justice, that moral utilitarianism implies moral subjectivism. Is the same
not true of logical utilitarianism?
Durkheim1914/1955 par.15.3
The notion of the useful is, moreover, a very obscure one. Everything is
useful in relation to certain ends, and even the worst things are useful
from a certain point of view. Inversely, even the best, such as knowledge,
have their disadvantages and can cause suffering: those ages in which
knowledge has increased must have been the most anguished. Any phenomenon
has infinite repercussions in the universe, some of them good and others
bad. How could we weigh advantages against drawbacks? It would probably be
possible to trace all effects back to a cause and consequently to a
criterion which would both be single and determining. One could, for
example, accept the existence of an impersonal and universal moral end
which all men are obliged to seek. But pragmatism excludes any
determination of this kind. The truth, says James, is what is 'expedient in
almost any fashion; and expedient in the long run and on the whole of
course; for what meets expediently all the experience in sight won't
necessarily meet all further experiences equally satisfactorily'. And yet
not everything can be true. A choice has to be made, but on what basis?
Only on that of personal experience. If something causes us more
satisfaction than discomfort, we can say that yes, it is useful. But the
experience of other people can be different. Although pragmatism does not
totally accept this consequence, truth can be totally subjective in such
conditions. It is a question of temperament: the temperament of the
ascetic, for example, and that of the man of action; both have their reason
for being, and thus correspond to two different modes of action.
Durkheim1914/1955 par.15.4
But here a problem arises. If truth thus has a personal character, how can
impersonal truth be possible? Pragmatists see it as the ideal final stage
towards which all individual opinions would ultimately converge." What then
are the causes which would determine such a convergence? Two are mentioned
by the pragmatists.
(1) just as experience varies with individuals, so does its extent.
The person who possesses the widest and best-organised experience is in a
better position to see what is really useful. Gradually, his authority here
imposes itself and attracts the commendation of others. But is that a
decisive argument? Since all experience and all judgements are essentially
personal matters, the experience of others is valid for them, but not for
me.
(2) There are also social considerations. 'Every recognition of a judgement
by others is a social problem', says Schiller. Everyone, in fact, has an
interest in acting in concert with his fellow men, since if he does he
feels himself to be stronger and consequently more efficient and more
'useful'.
But the usefulness of joint action implies shared views, judgements and
ideas. The pragmatists have not disregarded this entirely. The difficulty
is that we do not in fact picture things as we desire them to be, and that
the pragmatist theses run the risk of making us not see this gap, and
consequently of making us see as true that which conforms to our desires.
In order to overcome this difficulty, we should have to agree to see the
general opinion, not as something artificial, but as an authority capable
of silencing the differences between individuals and of countering the
particularism of individual points of view. If, however, public opinion is
to be able to impose itself in this way it is essential that it should have
an extra-individual origin. But this is not possible in pragmatist
doctrine, since it holds that individual judgements are at the root of all
human thought: no purely individual judgement could ever become an
objective truth.
Durkheim1914/1955 par.15.5
Moreover, above all these dialectics, there is one fact. If, as pragmatism
maintains, the 'common' truth was the product of the gradual convergence of
individual judgements, one would have to be able to observe an ever-greater
divergence between the ways of thinking of individuals as one went further
and further back through history. However, what happens is exactly the
opposite." It is in the very earliest ages that men, in every social group,
all think in the same way. It is then that uniformity of thought can be
found. The great differences only begin to appear with the very first Greek
philosophers. The Middle Ages once again achieved the very type of the
intellectual consensus. Then came the Reformation, and with it came
heresies and schisms which were to continue to multiply until we eventually
came to realise that everyone has the right to think as he wishes.
Durkheim1914/1955 par.15.6
Let us also go back in the series of propositions of pragmatist doctrine.
We see that if pragmatism defines the true as the useful, it is because it
has proposed the principle that truth is simply an instrument of action.
For pragmatism, truth has no speculative function: all that concerns it is
its practical utility. For pragmatists, this speculative function is
present only in play and dreams. But for centuries humanity has lived on
non-practical truths, beliefs which were something quite other than
'instruments of action'. Myths have no essentially practical character. In
primitive civilisations they are accepted for themselves, and are objects
of belief. They are not merely poetic forms. They are groupings of
representations aimed at explaining the world, systems of ideas whose
function is essentially speculative. For a long time, myths were the means
of expression of the intellectual life of human societies. If men found a
speculative interest in them, it is because this need corresponded to a
reality.
Durkheim, E. 1918/1960 Rousseau's Social Contract
Durkheim1918/1960 p. 82
[Durkheim quoting Rousseau. The quotation is from the Geneva Manuscript of
The Social Contract. See
Christopher Bertram's 1999 translation at the University
of Bristol
]
A society is
"a moral entity having specific qualities distinct from those
of the individual beings which compose it, somewhat as chemical compounds
have properties that they owe to none of their elements. If the aggregation
resulting from these vague relationships really formed a social body, there
would be a kind of common sensorium that would outlive the correspondence
of the parts. Public good and evil would not be merely the sum of
individual good and evil, as in a simple aggregation, but would lie in the
relation that unites them. It would be greater than that sum, and public
well being would not be the result of the happiness of individuals, but
rather its source"
Durkheim1918/1960 p. 83
... Rousseau was keenly aware of the specificity of the social order. He
conceived it clearly as an order of facts generically different from purely
individual facts. It is a new world super-imposed on the purely
psychological world. A conception of this kind is far superior even to that
of such recent theorists as
Spencer, who think they
have grounded society in nature when they have pointed out that man has a
vague sympathy for his fellow men, and that it is in his interest to
exchange services with them. Feelings of this kind may make for momentary
contacts between individuals, but these intermittent and superficial
relationships which, as Rousseau puts it, lack the "connection between the
parts, that constitutes the whole," are not societies. Rousseau realised
this. In his view, society is nothing if not a single definite body
distinct from its parts.
Durkheim, E. 1925a Moral Education. A study in the
Theory and Application of the Sociology of Education
The editor's introduction, by Everett K. Wilson, to the 1965 translation,
contains a number of quotations that I cannot find in the text. These
include:
"to act morally is to act in terms of the collective interest... the domain
of the moral begins where the domain of the social begins" (p.xi)
Durkheim 1925a p.3
Chapter 1: Introduction: Secular Morality
Anything that reduces the effectiveness of moral education, whatever
disrupts patterns of relationships, threatens public morality at its very
roots
...
It is in our public schools that the majority of our children are being
formed. These schools must be the guardians par
[p.4]
excellence of our
national character. They are the heart of our general
education system. We must, therefore, focus our attention on them, and
consequently on moral education as it is understood and practised and as it
should be understood and practised.
Durkheim 1925a p.9
... if, in rationalising morality in moral education, one confines himself
to withdraw from moral discipline everything that is religious without
replacing it, one almost inevitably runs the danger of withdrawing at the
same time all elements that are properly moral. Under the name of rational
morality, we would be left only with an impoverished and colourless
morality. To ward of this danger, therefore, it is imperative not to be
satisfied with a superficial separation.
We must seek, in the very heart of religious conceptions, those moral
realities that are, as it were, lost and dissimulated in it. We must
disengage them, find out what they consist of, determine their proper
nature, and express them in rational language. In a word, we must discover
the rational substitutes for those religious notions that for a long time
have served as the vehicle for the most essential moral ideas.
An example will illustrate precisely what I mean. Even without pushing the
analysis, everybody readily perceives that in one sense, a very relative
sense... the moral order constitutes a
sort of autonomous order in the world. There is something about
prescriptions of morality that imposes particular respect for them. While
all opinions relating to the material world - to the physical or mental
organisation of either animals or men - are today entitled to free
discussion, people do not admit that moral beliefs should be as freely
subjected to criticism. Anybody who questions in our presence that the
child has duties towards his parents or that human life should be respected
provokes us to immediate protest. The response is quite different from that
which a scientific heresy might arouse. It resembles at every point the
reprobation that the blasphemer arouses in the soul of the believer.
There is even stronger reason for the feelings incited by infractions of
moral rules being altogether different from those provoked by ordinary
infractions
[p.10] of the
precepts of practical wisdom or of professional technique.
The domain of morality is as if surrounded by a mysterious barrier which
keeps violators at arm's length, just as the religious domain is protected
from the reach of the profane. All the things it comprises are as if
invested with a particular dignity that raises them above our empirical
individuality, and that confers upon them a sort of transcendent reality.
Do we not say, casually, that the human person is sacred, and that we must
hold it in reverence?
Durkheim 1925a p.12
... if we have felt with greater force than our fathers the need for an
entirely rational moral education, it is evidently because we are becoming
more rationalistic.
Rationalism is only one of the aspects of individualism: it is the
intellectual aspect of it. We are not dealing here with two different
states of mind; each is the converse of the other. When one feels the need
of liberating individual thought, it is because in a general way one feels
the need of liberating the individual.
Intellectual servitude is only one of the servitudes that individualism
combats. All development of individualism has the effect of opening moral
consciousness to new ideas and rendering it more demanding. Since every
advance that it makes results in a higher conception, a more delicate
dignity of man, individualism cannot be developed without making apparent
to us as contrary to human dignity, as unjust, social relations that at one
time did not seem unjust at all. Conversely , as a matter of fact,
rationalistic faith reacts on individualistic sentiment and stimulates it.
Consequently, a given advance in moral education in the direction of
greater rationality cannot occur without also bringing to light new moral
tendencies, without inducing a greater thirst for justice, without stirring
the public conscience by latent aspirations."
Part 1: The Elements of Morality
Durkheim 1925a p.17
Chapter 2: The First Element of
Morality: The Spirit of
Discipline
We cannot usefully treat any teaching problem, whatever it may be, except
by starting where we are in time and space, i. e., with the conditions
confronting the children with whom we are concerned.
In fulfilling this methodological requirement, I tried to emphasize in the
last chapter the terms in which the problem of moral education is posed for
us.
One can distinguish two stages in childhood: the first, taking place almost
entirely within the
family or the
nursery school
- a substitute for the
family, as its name suggests; the second, in
elementary school, when the
child, beginning to leave the family circle, is initiated into a larger
environment. This we call the second period of childhood; we shall focus on
it in discussing moral education. This is indeed the critical moment in the
formation of moral character. Before that, the child is still very young;
his intellectual development is quite rudimentary and his emotional life is
too simple and underdeveloped. He lacks the intellectual foundation
necessary
(p.18)
for the relatively complex ideas and sentiments that undergird our
morality. The limited boundaries of his intellectual horizon at the same
time limit his moral conceptions. The only possible training at this stage
is a very general one, an elementary introduction to a few simple ideas and
sentiments.
On the other hand, if, beyond this second period of childhood
i.e., beyond school age - the foundations of morality have not been laid,
they never will be. From this point on, all one can do is to complete the
job already begun, refining sensibilities and giving them some intellectual
content i.e. informing them increasingly with intelligence. But the ground
work must have been laid
...
contrary to the all too popular notion that moral education falls chiefly
within the jurisdiction of the family, I judge that the task of the school
in the moral development of the child can and should be of the greatest
importance. There is a whole aspect of the culture, and a most important
one, which would otherwise be lost. For if it is the family that can
(p.19)
distinctively and effectively evoke and organize those homely sentiments
basic to morality and--even more generally--those germane to the simplest
personal relationships, it is not the agency so constituted as to train the
child in terms of the demands of society. Almost by definition, as it were,
it is an inappropriate agency for such a task.
Therefore, focusing our study on the school, we find ourselves precisely at
the point that should be regarded as the locus, par excellence, of moral
development for children of this age. We have committed ourselves to
provide in our schools a completely rational moral education, that is to
say, excluding all principles derived from revealed religion. Thus, the
problem of moral education is clearly posed for us at this point in
history.
Durkheim 1925a p.23
In the first place, there is an aspect common to all behaviour
that we ordinarily call moral. All such behaviour conforms to
pre-established rules. To conduct one's self morally is a matter of abiding
by a norm., determining what conduct should obtain in a given instance even
before one is required to act. The domain of morality is the domain of
duty; duty is prescribed behaviour.
Durkheim 1925a p.27
... the function of morality is, in the first place, to determine conduct,
to fix it, to eliminate the element of individual arbitrariness. Doubtless
the content of moral precepts - that is to say, the nature of the
prescribed behaviour - also has moral value... However, since all such
precepts promote regularity of conduct among men, there is a moral aspect
in that theses actions - not only in their specific content, but in a
general way - are held to a certain regularity.
This is why transients and people who cannot hold themselves
to specific jobs are always suspected. It is because their moral
temperament is fundamentally defective - because it is most uncertain and
undependable. Indeed, in refusing to yield to the requirements of
regularised conduct, they disdain all customary behaviour, they resist
limitations and restrictions, and they feel some compulsion to remain
'free'.
Chapter 3: The Sprit of Discipline (continued)
Durkheim 1925a p.34
... since moral requirements are not merely another name for personal
habits, since they determine conduct
imperatively from sources outside ourselves, in order to fulfil
one's obligations and to act morally one must have some appreciation of the
authority
sui generis that informs morality. In
other words, it is necessary that the person be so constituted as to feel
above him a force unqualified by his personal preferences and to which he
yields.
Durkheim 1925a p.43
Thus, we should not see in the discipline to which we subject children a
means of constraint necessary when it seems indispensable for
preventing culpable conduct. Discipline is in itself a factor,
sui generis, of education.
There are certain essential elements of moral character, that can be
attributed only to discipline. Through it and by means of it alone we
are able to teach the child to rein in his desires, and to set limits to
his appetites of all kinds, to limit and, through limitation, to define the
goals of his activity.
Durkheim 1925a p.44
Imagine a being liberated from all external restraint,... a
despot that no
external power can restrain or influence. By definition, the desires of
such a being are irresistible. Shall we say, then, that he is all-powerful?
Certainly not, since he himself cannot resist his desires. They are masters
of him, as of everything else. He submits to them; he does not dominate
them.
Durkheim 1925a p.45
A
despot is like a child; he has a child's weaknesses because he
is not
master of himself. Self-mastery is the first condition of all true power,
of all liberty worthy of the name. One cannot be master of himself when he
has within him forces that by definition, cannot be mastered. For the same
reason, political parties that are too strong - those that do not have to
take account of fairly strong minorities - cannot last long. It is not long
to their downfall, simply because of their excessive power. Since there is
nothing to restrain them they, they inevitably go to violent extremes,
which are self destroying....
Someone who was, or believed himself to be, without limits, either in fact
or by right, could not dream of limiting himself without being
inconsistent; it would do violence to his nature.
Durkheim 1925a p.47
Chapter 4: The Sprit of Discipline (concluded); and the second element
of morality: Attachment to Social Groups
Morality... is basically a discipline. All discipline has a double
objective: to promote a certain regularity in people's conduct, and to
provide them with determinate goals that at the same time limit their
horizons.
Discipline promotes a preference for the customary, and it imposes
restrictions. It regularises and it constrains. It answers to whatever is
recurrent and enduring in men's relationships
with one another.
Durkheim 1925a p.55
Human behavior can be distinguished in terms of the ends toward which it is
directed. Now, all the objectives sought by men may be classified into the
following two categories. First, there are those concerning only the
individual himself who pursues them; we shall therefore call them personal.
Durkheim 1925a p.65
Second, there are those acts concerning something other than the individual
who is acting; in this case, we shall call them impersonal. One can readily
see that this last category comprises a considerable number of different
kinds of acts, according to whether the ends pursued by the actor relate to
other individuals, to groups, or to things. But for the moment it is not
necessary to go into these details.
Having made the major distinction, let us see if those acts in the service
of personal ends can be called moral.
Personal objectives themselves are of two kinds. We may, first of all, seek
simply and purely to sustain life, to preserve ourselves, to seek refuge
from those destructive elements that threaten us. Or we may seek personal
aggrandizement or personal development. We certainly cannot pass adverse
judgment on those acts aimed solely and uniquely at sustaining life. But so
far as the public conscience is concerned, such behavior is and always has
been quite bereft of moral value. Such acts are morally neutral. Consider
someone who takes good care of himself, follows meticulously the rules of
hygiene with the single aim of survival. We do not say that his conduct is
moral. We deem his conduct prudent, wise; but we do not consider that there
is anything in such behavior to which the notion of morality applies. It is
outside the realm of morality. Doubtless it is otherwise when we take care
of our life, not simply to be able to preserve and enjoy it, but, for
example, to be able to preserve our family because we feel that we are
necessary to it. In this case our behavior would be considered moral, since
it is not a personal end that one has in view, but the interest of the
family. Such action is not directed toward personal survival but to enable
others than ourselves to live. The objective sought is, thus, impersonal.
True, I may seem to run counter to the current conception according to
which man has an obligation to perserve his life. This is beside the point.
I do not deny that man has an obligation to live, but I say that he does
not
(p. 57)
fulfill a duty, through the sole act of survival, except when life is for
him a means of achieving an end that transcends his own life. There is
nothing moral in living just for the sake of keeping alive.
The same may be said of all those things we do with a view not only to
preserve but to develop and strengthen ourselves --at least if such
development is only in our own interest. For example, the man who devotes
himself to the cultivation of his intellect or to the refinement of his
aesthetic faculties with the single aim of success or, even more simply,
for the satisfaction of feeling more complete, richer in knowledge and
feelings, for the solitary enjoyment of the picture he presents to himself-
-such a man does not evoke in us any feeling of morality. One may admire
him as one admires a beautiful work of art. But to the extent that he seeks
only personal objectives, whatever they may be, we cannot say that he
fulfills any obligation. Neither science nor art has any intrinsic moral
virtue that can be communicated, ipso facto to him who possesses them.
Everything hinges on the uses one puts them to, or wishes to make of them.
When, for example, one undertakes scientific research in order to reduce
human suffering, then by common consent the act is morally praiseworthy.
But it is not the same when the research is carried out purely for personal
satisfaction.
Here then is our first conclusion: behavior, whatever it may be, directed
exclusively toward the personal ends of the actor does not have moral
value. It is true that, according to the utilitarian moralists, the moral
conscience deceives itself when it judges human conduct in this fashion.
According to them, strictly self-centered goals are par excellence the
laudable ones. But we do not need to preoccupy ourselves here with the way
in which these thinkers evaluate morality; it is this morality itself that
we wish to know as it is understood and practiced by all civilized peoples.
Put in these terms, the question may be easily resolved. Not only is
(p. 58)
there not today, but there never has existed any people among whom an
egoistic act--that is to say, behavior directed solely to the interest of
the person performing it--has been considered moral. Hence, we may conclude
that behavior prescribed by the rules of morality is always behavior in
pursuit of impersonal ends.
What must we understand by this word? Shall we say that, to act morally, it
is enough to look, not to our personal interest, but to that of some other
person? Thus, to guard my health would not, according to my contention, be
a moral act; but the nature of the act changes when it is the health of
someone like myself that I safeguard, when it is his happiness or his
enlightenment that I have in view. Such an understanding of this behavior
is inconsistent and contradicts itself. Why should that which for me has no
moral value have it in the case of others? Why should the health or
intelligence of someone who, let us suppose, is like myself --for I leave
aside the case in which there are marked discrepancies between the actors--
be more sacred than my health and intelligence are to me? On the average,
men are of about the same stature, their personalities are more or less
alike and may, so to speak, be substituted for one another. If an act
calculated to preserve or develop my personality is amoral, why should it
be otherwise with an identical act except that it is directed at some other
personality? Why is the one more to be valued than the other? Besides, as
Spencer has observed, such a morality is applicable only on the condition
that it is not universally applied. Indeed, imagine a society in which
everyone was prepared to deny himself in favor of his neighbor; then, for
the same reason, none could accept the self-denial of others, and
renunciation would become impossible because of its universality. For the
practice of philanthropy, some must be willing not to--or be in such a
position that they cannot--practice it. It is a virtue reserved for some.
Morality, on the contrary, must by definition be common and
(p. 59) accessible to all. Thus, one can
scarcely see in sacrifice or in the devotion of person to person the kind
of act we call moral. The essential qualities we are seeking must lie
elsewhere.
Shall we find such qualities in action aiming to fulfill, not the interest
of someone other than the actor, but the interest of many others; and shall
we say that the impersonal goals that alone can confer a moral character
upon an act are the particular objectives of a plurality of individuals?
Thus, I would be acting morally not when I act on my own behalf, not when I
act in the interests of another man, but when I act on behalf of a certain
number of my fellows. But how could this be? If each individual taken
separately has no moral worth, the sum total of individuals can scarcely
have more. The sum of zeros is, and can only be, equal to zero. If a
particular interest, whether mine or someone else's, is amoral, several
such particular interests must also be amoral.
Moral action pursues impersonal objectives. But the impersonal goals of
moral action cannot be either those of a person other than the actor, or
those of many others. Hence, it follows that they must necessarily involve
something other than individuals. They are supra-individual.
Outside or beyond individuals there is nothing other than groups formed by
the union of individuals, that is to say, societies. Moral goals, then, are
those the object of which is society. To act morally is to act in terms of
the collective interest. This conclusion imposes itself in the wake of the
foregoing arguments, which were successively eliminated. Now, it is evident
that a moral act must serve some living and sentient being and even more
specifically a being endowed with consciousnesses. Moral relations are
relations between consciousnesses. Above and beyond me as a conscious
being, above and beyond those sentient beings who are other individual
human beings, there is nothing else save that sentient being that is
society. By this I mean anything that is a human group, the family as well
as the nation, and humanity, at
(p. 60) least to the extent that they
constitute societies. We shall have to inquire later if a rank order does
not exist among these different groups, if there are not some more
significant than others. For the moment, I shall limit myself to proposing
this principle, namely, that the domain of the moral begins where the
domain of the social begins.
To understand the significance of this major proposition, one must take
account of the meaning of society. If we accept what has for a long time
been the classical and widely held view, that society is only a collection
of individuals, we are thrown back into the foregoing difficulties without
any way of surmounting them. If self-interest has no moral value for me, it
has no more among my fellows whatever their number, and, consequently, the
collective interest, if it is only the sum of self-interests, is itself
amoral. If society is to be considered as the normal goal of moral conduct,
then it must be possible to see in it something other than a sum of
individuals; it must constitute a being sui generis, which has its own
special character distinct from that of its members and its own
individuality different from that of its constituent individuals. In a
word, there must exist, in the full meaning of the word, a social being. On
this condition only is society able to perform the moral function that the
individual cannot.
Thus, the conception of society as a being distinct from the individuals
who compose it, a conception demonstrated by sociology at a theoretical
level, is here confirmed at the practical level. For the fundamental
proposition of the moral conscience is not otherwise explicable. This
proposition, in effect, prescribes that man acts morally only when he works
toward goals superior to, or beyond, individual goals, only when he makes
himself the servant of a being superior to himself and to all other
individuals. Now, once we rule out recourse to theological notions, there
remains beyond the individual only a single, empirically observable moral
being, that which individuals form by their association--that is,
(p. 61) society. Unless the system of moral
ideas is the product of a general hallucination, that being with which
morality links our wills and which is the principal object of our behavior
can only be a divine being or a social being. We set aside the first of
these hypotheses as beyond the province of science. There remains the
second, which, as we shall see, is adequate for our needs and aspirations
and which, furthermore, embraces all the reality of the first, minus its
symbolism.
One may object that, since society consists only of individuals, it cannot
have a character different from that of the individuals who compose it.
This is a common-sense argument, which for a long time has impeded and
still impedes the development of sociology and the progress of a secular
morality for the one depends upon the other. It is an argument that has
received more attention than it merits. Indeed, experience demonstrates in
a thousand ways that a combination of elements presents new properties that
do not characterize any of the elements in isolation. The combination is
then something new through the linking of the parts that compose it. In
combining tin and copper, basic elements that are soft and malleable, one
gets a new substance with an altogether different property. It is bronze,
which is hard. A living cell consists entirely of inanimate, mineral
molecules. But by the sheer fact of their combination the qualities
characteristic of life emerge--the capacity for self-nourishment and
reproduction--which are not perceptible in minerals even at the germinal
stage.
Thus, it is an invariable fact that a whole may be something other than the
sum of its parts. There is nothing here that should surprise us. Simply
because the elements, rather than remaining isolated, are associated and
connected, they act and react upon one another; it is natural that these
actions and reactions, which are the direct result of the association and
which did not occur before that association, should give rise to entirely
new phenomena, hitherto nonexistent. Applying
(p. 62) this general statement to man and to
societies, we shall say, then, that because men live together rather than
separately, individual minds act upon one another; and as a result of the
relationships thus established, there appear ideas and feelings that never
characterized these minds in isolation. Everyone knows how emotions and
passions may break out in a crowd or a meeting, often altogether different
from those that the individuals thus brought together would have expressed
had each of them been exposed to the same experiences individually rather
than collectively. Things appear to have an altogether different character,
are felt in a very different fashion. Thus it is that human groups have a
way of thinking, of feeling, and of living differing from that of their
members when they think, feel, and live as isolates. Now, what we have said
of crowds, of ephemeral gatherings, applies a fortiori to societies, which
are only permanent and organized crowds.
One fact among many that makes clear this distinction between society and
the individual is the way in which the character of the collectivity
outlasts the personalities of its members. Early generations are replaced
by later ones, and meanwhile society remains with its own structure and its
own particular character. There are certainly differences between present-
day France and France of the past, but these are, so to speak, differences
in age. We have aged, certainly, and the characteristics of the
collectivity are consequently modified, just as the individual changes
physiologically as he goes through life. However, there is an identity
between the France of the Middle Ages and contemporary France that one
cannot fail to recognize. While generations of individuals succeed one
another, throughout this perpetual flux of particular personalities,
society persists, with its own mode of thought, its particular temperament
What is true of political society in its totality and by virtue of the
relationship between citizens can apply to each secondary group
(p. 63) through the interaction of its
members. The population of Paris is endlessly renewed; new elements flow in
here incessantly. Among present-day Parisians, there are very few who are
descendants of Parisians at the beginning of the century. But the social
life of Paris actually presents the same essential characteristics that it
had a hundred years ago. Only now they are more generally acknowledged.
Take the relative propensity for crime, for suicides, marriage, even the
comparatively low fertility--we find the proportionate distribution among
the different age categories analogous. It is, then the characteristic
influence of the group that imposes these similarities on the individuals
who continually enter it This is the best proof that the group is something
other than a number of individuals.
Chapter 5: Attachment to Social Groups (continued)
...
Durkheim 1925a pp 67-68
Individual and society are certainly beings with different natures. But far
from these being some inexpressible kind of antagonism between the tow, far
from its being the case that the individual can identify himself with
society only at the risk of renouncing his own nature either wholly or in
part, the fact is that he is not truly himself, he does not fully realise
his own nature, except on the condition that he is involved in society.
... the need for containing one's self within determinate limits is
demanded by the person's nature. Whenever such limits are breached,
whenever moral rules lack the necessary authority to exert, to a desirable
degree, a regulatory influence on our behaviour, we see society gripped by
a dejection and pessimism reflected in the curve of suicides.
Similarly, whenever society loses what it should normally have, the power
of promoting identification of individual wills with itself, whenever the
individual dissociates himself from collective in order to seek only his
own interests, we see the same result and phenomenon, and suicide
rates go
up. Man is the more vulnerable to self-destruction the more he is detached
from any collectivity, that is to say, the more self-centred his life.
Suicide is about three times more frequent among bachelors than among
married people, twice as frequent in childless homes as in those with
children. It seems, as a matter of fact, inversely related to the number of
children.
Durkheim 1925a p. 72
... during periods when society is disorganised and...has less power to
exact the commitment of individual wills, and when, consequently, egoism
has freer reign - these are calamitous times....
... just as morality limits and constrains us, in response to the
requirements of our nature, so in requiring our commitment and
subordination to the group does it compel us to realise ourselves...
Society is the producer and repository of all the riches of civilization,
without which man would fall to the level of animals. We must, then, be
receptive to its influence, rather than turning back jealously upon
ourselves to protect our autonomy.
Durkheim 1925a p. 73
Someone who does not live exclusively of, and for himself, who offers and
gives himself, who merges with the environing world and allows it to
permeates his life- such a person certainly lives a richer and more
vigorous life than the solitary egoist who bottles himself up and alienates
himself from man and things.
Society, therefore, goes beyond the individual; it has its own nature
distinct from that of the individual; consequently it fulfils the first
necessary condition for serving as the object of moral behaviour. But, on
the other hand, it rejoins the individual. There is no gulf between it and
him. It thrusts into us strong and deep roots. The best part of us is only
an emanation of the collectivity. This explains how we can commit ourselves
to it and even prefer it to ourselves.
Up to this point we have talked of society only in a general way, as if it
there were only one. As a matter of fact, man always lives in the midst of
many groups. To mention only the more important, there is the
family in
which one is born,
(p.74) the
nation or political group, and
humanity. Ought one to commit oneself to one of these groups to
the
exclusion of others? This is out of the question....
Family, nation and humanity represent different phases of our social and
moral
evolution, stages that prepare for, and build upon, one another.
...
Durkheim 1925a p 80
Chapter 6: Attachment to Social Groups (Concluded): And the Linkage of
the First Two Elements
We have specified the second element of morality. It consists in the
individual's attachment to those social groups of which he is a member.
Morality begins, accordingly, only in so far as we belong to a human group,
whatever it may be. Since, in fact, man is complete only as he belongs to
several societies, morality itself is complete only to the extent that we
feel identified with those different groups in which we are involved--
family, union, business, club, political party, country, humanity.
Invariably, however, these groups do not have an equal moral significance,
and they perform functions by no means equally important in the collective
life. We cannot, therefore accord them an equal place in our
considerations. There is one association that among all the others enjoys a
genuine pre-eminence and that represents the end, par excellence, of moral
conduct. This is the political society, i. e., the nation--but the nation
conceived of as a partial embodiment of the idea of humanity.
The nation, as it lays claim to the contemporary conscience,
(p.81) is not the inflated and jealous state
that knows no rules other than those directed toward its own interest and
that deems itself emancipated from all the discipline of morality. What
gives the nation its moral value is that it most closely approximates the
society of mankind, at present unrealized in fact and perhaps unrealizable,
yet representing the limiting case, or the ideal limit toward which we
always strive.
We must be careful lest we see in this conception of the nation some kind
of utopian fantasy. It is easy to see that it becomes more and more of a
reality in history. If for no other reason than that society becomes
increasingly big, the social ideal becomes more and more remote from all
provincial and ethnic conditions and can be shared by a greater number of
men recruited from the most diverse races and places. As a result of this
alone, it becomes more abstract, more general, and consequently closer to
the human ideal.
The statement of this principle allows us to resolve a difficulty
encountered in the preceding chapters, the solution of which we postponed.
Since the actor's self-interest does not constitute a moral end, we
concluded that others' individual interests could not be so regarded
either, since there is no reason that another like one's self should be in
a preferred position. But there is no doubt, as a matter of fact, that
conscience confers a certain moral character on actions undertaken on
behalf of one's fellow man. In a general sense, altrustic conduct in all
its forms is universally considered as morally praiseworthy. Now is the
public conscience wrong in thus evaluating man's conduct?
Such an assumption is clearly inadmissible. Given the generality of such a
view, one can scarcely see it as the result of some kind of fortuitous
aberration. An error is an accidental thing that can be neither so
universal nor so lasting. But it is not at all necessary to attribute this
kind of aberration
(p.82)
to people's moral judgments to make the facts fit what we have said. For
all that we have established is that charity, in the ordinary and popular
sense of the word, the charity of person to person, has no moral value in
itself and cannot by itself constitute the normal end of moral conduct.
It is still possible, nonetheless, that charity promotes morality
indirectly. Although the interest in others' welfare is not moral in itself
and cannot be accorded any moral priority, it may nonetheless be that the
tendency to seek it in preference to our own promotes the development of
morality, because such tendencies prepare and incline one to seek ends
geuninely and correctly moral. As a matter of fact, this is what happens.
There are no genuinely moral ends except collective ones. There is no truly
moral force save that involved in attachment to a group. However, when one
is committed to that society of which he is a member, it is psychologically
impossible not to be bound to the people who compose it and through whom it
comes into being. For although society is something other than the
individual, although it is not completely in any one of us, there is
nonetheless no one in whom it is not reflected. As a result, it is
altogether natural that the sentiments we have for it are borne back upon
those in whom society is partially embodied. To hold to society is to cling
to the social ideal; and there is a little of this ideal in each of us.
Each one of us has a hand in this collective ideal, which makes for the
integrity of the group, which in turn is the sacred thing, par excellence.
Consequently, each of us shares the religious deference inspired by this
ideal. The bond to the group thus implies, in an indirect but almost
necessary way, the bond to other individuals; when the group ideal is only
a particular manifestation of the human ideal--when the citizen-ideal
merges in large measure with the generic ideal of mankind-- then it is to
man qua man that we are bound, at the same time feeling more strongly
linked with those in whom we
(p.83)
find most clearly our society's particular conception of humanity.
Durkheim 1925a p. 85
... the function of morality is to link the individual to one or several
social groups... morality presupposes this very attachment. So it is that
morality is made for society.
Durkheim 1925a p.88
If society itself has instituted the rules of morality, it must also be
society that has invested them with their authority, which we seek to
explain.
What is it, in fact, that we label authority? Without pretending to settle
a problem as complex as this in a few words, we can nonetheless suggest the
following definition: authority is a quality with which a being, either
actual or imaginary, is invested through his relationship with given
individuals, and it is because of this alone that he is thought by the
latter to be endowed with powers superior to those they find in themselves.
It is of no importance, as a matter of fact, whether these powers are real
or imaginary. It is enough that they exist as real in peoples' minds. The
sorcerer is an authority for those who believe in him. This is why
authority is called moral: it is because it exists in minds, not in things.
Having stated the definition, it is easy to demonstrate that the being that
best fulfills the necessary conditions as constituting an authority is the
collective being. For it follows from all that we have said that society
infinitely surpasses the individual, not only in material scope, but beyond
that, in moral power. Not only does it command incomparably greater power,
since it derives from the mutual re-enforcement of all the individual
forces, but in it is found the source of that intellectual and moral life
to which we turn to nourish our thought and our morality. For the
fashioning of a newly born generation implies the assimilation, little by
little, of the cultural milieu; it is only gradually as the animal—as we
are born—incorporates the elements of his culture that the human being
emerges. For it is society that is the repository of all the wealth of
civilization; it is society that accumulates and preserves these treasures
transmitting them from age to
[Durkheim1925a
page 89]
age; it is through society that these riches reach us. Thus it is that we
are obligated to society, since it is from society that we receive these
things.
One can understand, therefore, how a powerful morality, of which our
conscience is merely a partial embodiment, must be invested with such
authority. Even that element of mystery that seems inherent in all
conceptions of authority is not lacking in the feeling we have for
society. As a matter of fact, it is natural that any being having
superhuman powers should baffle man's intelligence. This is why authority
achieves its maximum impact above all in some religious form.
Durkheim 1925a p.91
... authority does not reside in some external, objective fact, which
logically implies and necessarily produces morality. It consists entirely
in the conception that men have of such a fact; it is a matter of opinion
and opinion is a collective thing. It is the judgement of the group.
Furthermore, it is easy to understand why all moral authority must be
social in origin. Authority is that quality in a man who is lifted up above
other men; he is a superman. But the more intelligent man, or the stronger,
or the one who is more righteous is still a man; it is only a matter of
degree that differentiates him from his fellows. Only society is beyond the
individual. It is therefore from society that all authority emanates.
Durkheim 1925a p.146
To act morally is to conform to the rules of morality. Niw the moral law is
outside the consciousness of the child;... he begins to have contact with
it only after a given point in his life...
All that he has at birth are some very general dispositions, which are
crystallised in one way or another according to how the educator exerts his
influence, that is, according to the manner in which this potential is put
to work.
... this putting to work can and must begin in the family and from the
cradle...
... the parents have at their disposal the means of develping in the
child... something like a first feeling for moral authority.
This we may suppose that when the child enters school he is not in the
state of moral neutrality that characterised him at birth...
[However]
Durkheim 1925a p.147
The family, especially today, is a very small group of persons who know
each other intimately and who are constantly in contact with one another.
As a result, their relationships are not subject to any general,
impersonal, immutable regulation...
By virtue of its natural warmth, the family setting is especially likely to
give birth to the first altruistic inclinations, the first feelings of
solidarity; but the morality practised in this setting is above all a
matter of emotion and sentiment. The abstract idea of duty is less
important here than sympathy, than the spontaneous impulses of the heart.
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