Open AccessBook
Professional Ethics and Civic Morals
TLDR
Durkheim's view that the instability of industrial society was connected to the decline of religion and his characterization of the state as the ultimate moral force in society reveal his lifelong engagement with the relationship between the individual and society as mentioned in this paper.Abstract:
Emile Durkheim is one of the founding fathers of sociology and Professional Ethics and Civic Morals is one of his most neglected yet insightful works. Durkheim's view that the instability of industrial society was connected to the decline of religion and his characterization of the state as the ultimate moral force in society reveal his lifelong engagement with the relationship between the individual and society.
In Professional Ethics and Civic Morals Durkheim poses a major question: given the negative social consequences of unfettered markets, which caused what he termed ‘anomie’, how is the state to reconcile morality with the market? Durkheim argues that the answer is to be found in the evolution of a civil religion, in the form of professional codes and civic values, which would counteract the effects of individualism, just as guilds had regulated medieval economic life.
Arguing that the state has a vital role to play in moral life and that morals are at bottom social facts – a controversial position which drew considerable criticism – Durkheim also argues that the state had a duty to protect the rights of the individual, via a form of cosmopolitan patriotism.
Durkheim also articulates a highly original and critical interpretation of the rules around property and inheritance – a perspective which resonates with debates about inequality and the redistribution of wealth today.
Included in this Routledge Classics edition is a new introduction by Bryan S.Turner, placing Durkheim in contemporary context and outlining the key tenets of Professional Ethics and Civic Morals.read more
Citations
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
THE LIMITS OF THE SOVEREIGN STATE Strategies of Crime Control in Contemporary Society
TL;DR: A descriptive analysis of strategies of crime control in contemporary Britain and elsewhere can be found in this paper, where the authors argue that the normality of high crime rates and the limitations of criminal justice agencies have created a new predicament for governments.
Journal ArticleDOI
The Sociological Analysis of Professionalism Occupational Change in the Modern World
TL;DR: In this paper, a shift of focus is required from a preoccupation with defining ''profession'' to analysis of the appeal to ''professionalism'' as a motivator for and facilitator of occupational change.
Book
The Reflexive Imperative in Late Modernity
TL;DR: Archer as mentioned in this paper investigated the role of reflexivity in mediating between structure and agency, and argued that modernity is slowly ceding place to a'morphogenetic society' as meta-reflexivity now begins to predominate, at least amongst educated young people.
Journal ArticleDOI
The erosion of citizenship
TL;DR: This article argues that effective entitlement was based on participation in work, war and reproduction, resulting in three types of social identity: worker- citizens, warrior-citizens and parent-citizens, which are described as 'reproductive citizenship'.
Journal ArticleDOI
For An Anthropology Of Ethics And Freedom
TL;DR: The authors propose an approche possible for l'etude comparee et ethnographique de l'ethique et de la liberte, and quelques commentaires succincts on le jainisme servent a l'illustrer.
References
More filters
Book
The Social System
TL;DR: In the history of sociological theory, Talcott Parsons holds a very special place. as discussed by the authors presents a major scientific and intellectual advance towards the theory of action first outlined in his earlier work.
Book
Suicide: A Study in Sociology
TL;DR: The suicide is one of the least understandable of human behaviours as discussed by the authors, and suicide makes an immense contribution to our understanding to what must surely be the most understandable of acts in human life.
Book
Civilization and Its Discontents
TL;DR: In this article, Freud worked on what became the seminal volume of twentieth-century thought, "Structural Theory of Mind", which stands as a brilliant summary of the views on culture from a psychoanalytic perspective that he had been developing since the turn of the century.
Book
The Rules of Sociological Method
Emile Durkheim,Steven Lukes +1 more
TL;DR: The Rules of the Sociological Method as discussed by the authors is one of the most important contributions to the field of sociology, still debated among scholars today, and has been a focal point of sociology since its original publication.
Book
The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life
TL;DR: In The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912), Emile Durkheim set himself the task of discovering the enduring source of human social identity as discussed by the authors, and investigated what he considered to be the simplest form of documented religion - totemism among the Aborigines of Australia.