The historical origins of the box.
• according to Emile Durkheim.
We might mean two things by “the
historical origins of the box”
•
•
•
•
1. How it was constructed in ancient Rome
And/or
2. How it became the basic
structure of the modern world
• Today we mean
the second of these.
We will propose a realist
philosophy of ethics
• Being realist means that much of our
material will come from the sciences
• Today it will come from the science of
sociology
• But first …. two definitions of “ethics”
In a first sense of the word “ethics”
• Ethics
Morals
• Ethics comes from the Greek ethos
• Morals comes from the Latin mores
• Both refer to customs, rules, norms, and
the character of the person who conforms
to the customs, obeys the rules, complies
with the norms
When the Romans read Greek
texts
• and came across the word “ethos”
• they translated it as “mores”
• Still today many people treat “ethics” and
“morals” as synonyms
In a second sense of the word
“ethics”
Ethics
Morals
• Ethics is the branch of philosophy that
studies the justification of morals
• Ethics asks “Why these morals and not
some other morals?”
A realist philosophy of ethics learns from
what science has discovered about morals
Today we learn from sociology, a science usually
considered to have had three great founders
Karl Marx
1818-1883
Max Weber Emile Durkheim
1864-1920 1857-1917
“The key to understanding the
different schools of sociology is
to study how each explains the
rise of the modern world”
--Anthony Giddens
--Professor of Sociology
Cambridge University UK
How does a sociologist like Durkheim
explain the rise of the modern world?
• But what do you mean by “modern world?”
• And if there is a “modern world” then there
must have been a pre-modern or nonmodern or un-modern or traditional world.
Modern World
Traditional World
What was the traditional world that people
changed from when they changed to the
modern world? What does Durkheim say
about this?
Well,one thing
Durkheim says is
that morals are a physical
NECESSITY.
No human group can survive without morals.
Every human group generates the rules it
lives by.
NO SOCIETY CAN SURVIVE
WITHOUT NORMS
So if there is a modern world and a modern
society and there is a traditional world and
a traditional society then there must be a
modern ethics and a traditional ethics.
RIGHT ?
According to Durkheim it all starts
with religion
• In his terminology “archaic” societies
(roughly equivalent to tribal societies)
• Take the form of extended families or
kinship networks
• Held together by “social cement”
• The “social cement” is religion as
described in his book THE ELEMENTARY
FORMS OF THE RELIGIOUS LIFE (1895)
According to Durkheim and many
sociologists and anthropologists
• At a physical level traditional (“archaic”)
peoples cooperate to survive
• Organized by norms of reciprocity and
redistribution
• That prescribe mutual duties within the
kinship group
• (which may well be in a state of perpetual
war with other groups)
For example
European explorers were amazed when they
found that a hungry and nearly starving Eskimo
hunter who killed a seal would not eat a single
bite of it until he had trudged many kilometres
back to the igloo to share it with his kinship
group.
Notice some of the ways we are
simplifying
• We are simply ignoring the ancient
empires
• And the large non-western civilizations
• And the great variety among tribal peoples
• In order to focus on just two ideal types:
• Durkheim´s typical “archaic society”
• And modernity as it arose in Europe
Are you going to tell us how Emile Durkheim
explains the rise of modern society?
• Modern society arose because of the
division of labour. (according to Durkheim´s
doctoral thesis of1893)
• Why did the division of labour arise?
• Because of the increase in population.
Traditional society could not produce
enough food to feed so many people.
• Are you saying the secret of modern
society is productivity?
That´s what Adam Smith says, and Herbert
Spencer, and following them Emile
Durkheim.
• Let me try to understand this. The division of labour and
the accumulation of capital make it possible to support a
larger population. That means people make fewer things
for themselves and their clan and make more things to
sell or else they work for somebody who makes things to
sell, and then they buy what they need with the money
they get from sales.
• In other words people move from an archaic society to a
market society.
• And to organize a market society, Europe revived and
“received” the old Roman Law, which was designed to
organize commerce and which had been somewhat
dormant for a thousand years.
That is the box.
THE FREE INDIVIDUAL
PROPERTY
CONTRACT
NO DUTY TO HELP
So then was everybody happy?
• Not really.
• In Durkheim´s study of suicide (1897) he
found that statistically the more modern a
society is the more suicide
• And the more traditional the less suicide.
• People in modern societies tend to suffer
from loneliness and anomie
(normlessness)
Durkheim´s solution
• Social integration
• In a modern society whose commercial
structure tends toward loneliness and
disintegration
• Take deliberate steps to rebuild
community
• (Durkheim´s personal favourite was
organizing professional organizations of
people in the same field.)
Now let´s look at the rise of modern society
according to another great sociologist
• Max Weber
• Weber is famous for saying that
the protestant religion led to a modern mentality.
• He also said that the systematic legal structure
of the Roman tradition made it possible to plan
investments and organize markets.
For Weber there are two main
modern institutions: capitalism
and bureaucracy
Both of them depend on modern
rationality
Modern rationality=
Zweckrationalität= find the most
efficient way to achieve the
objective
Traditional rationality =
Wertrationalität= follow the
customs
So now is everybody happy?
• Not really.
• For Weber the modern world is
“disenchanted” (entzaubert)
• Entzaubert means literally “the magic is
taken away”
• Others have suggested a solution: “reenchantment”
Re-enchantment
What does Robert Bellah, a
contemporary sociologist at U of
California say?
• He says the traditional world is still with us.
It co-exists with modernity.
• Most people can speak four “languages”
• 1. The “language” of business.
• 2. The “language” of psychotherapy.
• 3. The “language” of religion.
• 4. The “language” of politics.
So if we want to synthesize
modernity with tradition
•
•
•
•
To get the best of both
We do not have to start from nothing
Traditional values are alive and well
Among the skyscrapers of the modern city.
An essay question for you:
• Comment on the idea that traditional
ethics are still with us. They co-exist with
modernity.
• WHAT DO YOU THINK?
THAT´S ALL FOR NOW !