Durkheim's altruism and morality

Emile Durkheim was one of the greatest advocates of the principles of moral collectivism and altruism. He maintained that society was a moral reality onto itself and that society was the sole determinant of moral phenomena. Durkheim compared society to an organism to convince his audience of his moral propositions and of his whole paradigm of social realism. In any case of conflict between statements of the nature of society and the nature of morality, he assigned primacy to his statements about morality. His view of society was a product of his view of morality, and he attempted to construct a view of society as an organism to fit his scholarly needs. Once we examine Durkheim's reasonin g, we are better suited to scrutinize the basis for moral collectivism in general and in all theories that draw upon Durkheim's legacy.

This article is meant to initiate new scrutiny on what Durkheim understood by the word "society" and the tension between his assumptions related to existence and his moral assumptions. Books by contemporary Durkheimian scholars have accurately addressed the importance of perceiving Durkheim as a moralist, yet these same works have been reluctant to discuss the matter of primacy between Durkheim's statements about the existence of society and his moral (normative) statements. The vast majority of works on Durkheim have allocated much greater space to Durkheim's conclusions than to and the validity of his concepts.

There’s no shortage of commentators who say that recent anthropological studies haven't born out Durkheim's assessment of the so-called primitive societies as lacking individuality or being based on penal rather than on restitutive sanctions. However, these critiques have not challenged Durkheim's conclusions directly, his belief in collective concepts or his view of the social basis of morality in general.

Only a little recent scholarship has explored whether Durkheim was more committed to his position on morals or to his methodological position and view of the nature of society. All examined Durkheim from his own desired position as a social realist who examined morality in a scientific approach. However, Miller suggested that Durkheim assumed without cause a harmonious social system and ethical relativism. Similarly, Ginsberg showed that Durkheim lacked all evidence for his basic assertions on morality aside from dialectic rhetoric, but did not follow up with a criticism of moral collectivism. Despite significant criticism of Durkheim in regard to his facts and methods, on the whole there had been little criticism of Durkheim's view of morality as collective phenomena, perhaps because such criticism would be applicable to other, more popular, theories as well.

Durkheim was a moralist. He was a sociologist who stressed that the social reality was a moral order. He claimed that he was starting a scientific and empirical study of morality. In simple terms, Durkheim was a moral collectivist who said that morality began with the life of the group and that society created all moral codes. For Durkheim, social solidarity was virtually synonymous with morality. After all, all morality had to exist for a purpose, Durkheim reasoned, an assumption that by itself is not controversial. Durkheim referred to morality as existing not for the individual, but for the purposes of society. He never said that morality served the welfare of society's individuals; instead, he emphasized that it served the collective interests or collective purpose. He was sure that society pursued its own interests.

Durkheim's moral theory can be sufficiently described as either moral collectivism or philosophical altruism. Both terms are for Durkheim
different sides of the same coin and are essentially the same moral principle. Durkheim's work bears scrutiny and discussion because his theory represented a thorough development of his ideas to achieve his goals. Few academics have been so ruthless in the development of their moral theories, and an examination of Durkheim gives greater insight into the related theories of Kant and Schopenhauer. Durkheim equated self-sacrifice and altruism with morality in essence, but always kept his definitions clear: for him altruism was the violent and voluntary act of self-destruction for no personal benefit. Altruism was not kindness or charity, and self-sacrifice was not the act of helping a particular person for that person's own sake.

For Durkheim, not only was morality not for the benefit of the individual who would accept self-sacrifice, it was not for the benefit of the other individuals, but for the collective nature of society. After all, if individuals could not morally live for themselves because individual life was worthless, they could not morally live to help other individuals as such. As morality was self-destructive, Durkheim described those who took morality to an extreme as fools. He did not say that morality was for either the collective well‑being of society as a whole or the collective well-being of society as a group of individuals, but for the collective nature of society: for the collective nature to be strong and to assert itself against the wishes and needs of the individuals.

At no point did Durkheim ever imply that what benefited the nature of society necessarily benefited the individuals. In contrast, he emphasized that the conditions of morality was that it commanded and it made itself look desirable, and that it commanded the individual to do violence to himself and to his individual nature for no benefit to himself or to other individuals as such. According to Durkheim, desirability was a transitory characteristic, necessary but vague, a pleasure of performing duty for the sake of duty and that the individual didn't even understood the reasons for why he was commanded to obey.

Durkheim advocated a moral theory of altruism and self-sacrifice, we can look at the relationship of Durkheim's theory of the nature of group life with new insight. Durkheim's commitment to his moral theory never altered. The relationship between his statements about morality and his statements about the nature of society shows which of these two parts of his theory he regarded as primary and the most important, and the difference between what may have been his alleged starting position and what was his fundamental position around which everything was positioned.

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