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 Max Weber Emile Durkheim

1818-1883 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 non-modern 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 bureaucracyBoth 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: “re-enchantment”

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 !