Emile Durkheim on Morality and Society

By Émile Durkheim

Book Overview

Emile Durkheim is best known in this country as a great sociologist and methodologist. Yet it was Durkheim's reflections on morality and society that spoke most deeply of his vital concerns. In his informative introduction to this work, Robert N. Bellah describes Durkheim as moralist, philosopher, theologian, and prophet, as well as sociologist, and the selections in this volume are representative of these aspects of Durkheim's many-faceted scholarship.

The first two selections of the volume set the context for the development of Durkheim's sociology of morality. Section I, "The French Tradition of Social Thought," gives Durkheim's picture of how his sociology is to be situated relative to the general French tradition. Section II, "Sociology and Social Action," shows Durkheim grappling with moral and political issues in his society and indicates the immediate social context of his thinking.

The remaining selections indicate some of the major substantive areas of Durkheim's sociology of morality. Section III, taken from The Division of Labor in Society, demonstrates his basically evolutionary approach to the development of moral norms in society. Section IV, "The Learning of Morality," gives examples of Durkheim's work on socialization. Section V, "Social Creativity," deals with the important question of how new moral norms arise in society.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0226173364
• ISBN13: 9780226173368
• Release Date: February 1973
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Length: 300 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Great for students

Bellah has gathered Durkheim's most oft-cited writings (including Elementary Forms, Division of Labor, Suicide, and Sociological Method) and arranged them topically in this work. The book begins with Durkheim's review of French social thought, then chapters on "Sociology and Social Action, The Evolution of Morality, The Learning of Morality," and "Social Creativity." A lengthy introduction gives an overview of Durkheim's biography, other writers who influenced his thinking, as well as summaries of the major works whose selections are within. It's an excellent book for both undergraduate and graduate theory courses: most selections are between 10 and 20 pages.