Lecture 2 Durkheim: Individual, society and morality

1
Lecture 2Durkheim Individual, society and
morality
2
Society is a social fact
When I fulfil my obligations as brother,
husband, or citizen, when I execute my contracts,
I perform duties which are defined, externally to
myself and my acts, in law and in custom. Even if
they conform to my own sentiments and I feel
their reality subjectively, such reality is still
objective, for I do not create them I merely
inherited them through my education (Durkheim,
The Rules of sociological Method)
3
Mechanical solidarity

• Cohesion in society is the result of resemblance
• Common beliefs and practices
• The individual is not distinct from the group

4
Organic solidarity

• Based on the division of labour
• Individuals are grouped according to social
  activity
• Evolutionary development towards greater
  complexity
• The space for the individual becomes greater. The
  autonomous person.

5
Every society is a moral society

• Altruism is the basis of social life
• Morality binds us to society
• It is the source of solidarity
• It forces us to regulate our own individual
  interests and take account of others.
• Repressive morality gives way to individual
  morality
• Cult of the dignity of the individual is the
  moral basis of modern society
• Reflection, personal responsibility, choice
• Moral diversity

6
Collective effervescence
In the midst of an assembly animated by a common
passion, we become susceptible of acts and
sentiments of which we are incapable when reduced
to our own forces and when the assembly is
dissolved and when, finding ourselves alone
again, we fall back to our ordinary level, we are
then able to measure the height to which we have
been raised above ourselves. (Durkheim, Émile
(1968 1915) The Elementary Forms of the
Religious Life p209)
7
Collective Conscience
The man who has done his duty finds, in the
manifestations of every sort expressing the
sympathy, esteem or affection which his fellows
have for him, a feeling of comfort, of which he
does not ordinarily take account, but which
sustains him none the less. Because he is in
moral harmony with his comrades, he has more
confidence, courage and boldness in action . It
thus produces, as it were, a perpetual sustenance
for our moral nature. (Durkheim, Émile (1968
1915) The Elementary Forms of the Religious
Life)
8
Homo duplex
On the one hand is our individuality and more
particularly, our body in which it is based on
the other is everything in us that expresses
something other than ourselves. (The Dualism of
Human Nature and its Social Conditions )
9
Summary

• Society is objectified as a thing separate from
  the individual
• The scope for individuality is a product of the
  form society takes
• Morality is located in the society, rather than
  the individual
• The individual is opposed to society