Emile Durkheim Quotes on Virtue
Emile Durkheim, a founder of modern sociology, approached morality and virtue as social facts, and the quotes gathered here present that distinctive view. For Durkheim morality is not primarily a matter of individual conscience but of society itself: every society is a moral society, and the individual receives from society everything necessary to him. He argued that morality must have a real object beyond the individual, postulating a society specifically distinct from individuals, since otherwise morality has no object and duty no roots. He also captured the relation between shared custom and formal law in a memorable maxim: when mores are sufficient, laws are unnecessary, and when mores are insufficient, laws are unenforceable. Drawn from his sociological works, these passages present virtue and moral duty as grounded in the life of society.
Quotes
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“When mores are sufficient, laws are unnecessary; when mores are insufficient, laws are unenforceable.”
As attributed in: Jeffrey Eisenach et al. (1993), Readings in renewing American civilization, p. 54 -
Attributed to Emile Durkheim:
“Anomie is a state of normlessness, in which the individual is left without a moral compass.”
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Attributed to Emile Durkheim:
“Man cannot become attached to higher aims and submit to a rule if he sees nothing above him to which he belongs.”
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Attributed to Emile Durkheim:
“It is from public opinion that the moral order receives its sanction.”
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“Kant postulates God, since without this hypothesis morality is unintelligible. We postulate a society specifically distinct from individuals, since otherwise morality has no object and duty no roots.”
Sociology and philosophy (1911), D. Pocock, trans. (1974), p. 51. -
“Every society is a moral society. In certain respects, this character is even more pronounced in organised societies. Because the individual is not sufficient unto himself, it is from society that he receives everything necessary to him, as it is for society that he works.”
The Division of Labor in Society(1893) | p. 228