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Dipartimento di Studi Sociali e Politici
Università degli Studi di Milano
Working Paper 6/08
Durkheim’s sociology of morality:
is it still valid?
Mariolina Graziosi
WWW.SOCPOL.UNIMI.IT
Dipartimento di Studi Sociali e Politici
Facoltà di Scienze Politiche,
via Conservatorio 7 - 20122
Milano - Italy
Tel.: 02 503 21201
02 503 21220
Fax: 02 503 21240
E-mail: [email protected]
Durkheim’s legacy
Durkheim published his first article about the foundation of sociology of morality in 1887, claiming
the need for a Moral Science (1887, p.24). He then offered courses at Bourdeaux, and then at the
Sorbonne that were posthumously published in the volume Leçons de Sociology and in L’Education
Morale. I totally agree with those scholars, such as Bellah, who think that the whole work of
Durkheim is connected to the analysis and exploration of the question of morality (1973).
Durkheim, witnessing the deep transformation of the society of his times1, posed a whole set of
crucial questions concerning change in social and existential conditions. He considered the analysis
of morality fundamental for understanding the deep social change caused by the process of
modernization.
The main question addressed by Durkheim was the moral nature of society. We shouldn’t
forget that Durkheim, the scientist, had two goals: to establish sociology as a science in it’s own
right, and to understand the deep changes that were occurring with the process of modernization. He
wanted to analyze social change with the instruments of the new science, sociology, aiming, at the
same time, to confirm that sociology was an autonomous field. We find then in all Durkheim's
works a combination of an epistemological-methodological interest with a substantive issue
concerning social transformation.
Considering Durkheim’s main interests, the following question spontaneously arises: were
Durkheim’s explanation of social change and then of the foundation of morality affected by his
epistemological and methodological interests? I believe only partially. Surely, Durkheim
overemphasized the role of society with respect to the role of the individual: for instance, when he
states that moral facts are social facts, he is giving less attention to the role of the individual
conscience. However, he emphasized the social nature of morality because previously only the
individual nature of morality was taken into consideration, disregarding the central role of society in
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the development of morality. Nevertheless, I don’t believe Durkheim would deny the role of the
individual in the development of morality.
Recently Bauman has criticized Durkheim’s explanation of the social nature of morality sustaining
that the foundations, the roots are in the individual; furthermore, he believes that history has shown
that society can separate the individual from the moral roots making him an a-moral social being.
This has been the case, Bauman argues, of Germans with respect to the Holocaust. (Bauman, 2000).
I am not in total disagreement with Bauman, however I don’t think that Durkheim would disagree
either.
The Holocaust has shown how a social group can pursue a-moral goals and how its members accept
them. The majority follows the rules because it is safe, because the rules are justified in the name
of the survival of the group, or of the superiority of the group. This shows how the moral role of
society is stronger than that of the individual. The individuals who have the courage to disagree are
very few because they find themselves questioning their belonging to the group, which leads to an
identity conflict. It is not easy to find yourself alone against those whom you consider your own
kin. The historical fact that the Holocaust was accepted by many Germans as a legitimate political
goal to pursue shows, then, how Durkheim was right in underlying the central moral weight of the
group; however, it also shows that society can pursue a-moral ends, as Bauman underlines but
Durkheim never considered.
Bauman suggests that the main reason the Nazi’s succeeded in their a-moral goal of destroying the
Jews, was that the process of rationalization had a crucial role in the destruction of the pietas that
human beings usually feel in front of the suffering of other human beings. It seems to me that the
abolition of pietas did not occur only during the Holocaust, but has in other times as well. Any time
a society has endorsed a system of values in which the Other is considered the enemy, the majority
of the members have accepted the system of values, and have behaved according to them, without
questioning either values or the goals derived from them 2. As sociologists we cannot doubt that
societies are formed on the base of a moral code that is internalized by the members of the group,
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with the consequence that it will affect their actions and perceptions; but as sociologists we also
have to raise the question concerning the morality of a moral code, which Durkheim never
addressed. In conclusion, I agree with Bauman and with those philosophers who inspired him that
the individual conscience carries the impulse of morality, but I also believe, as stated by Durkheim,
that only a social group can formulate an ethical code thanks to which the individual moral impulse
will develop into a moral conscience.
At this point it’s crucial to explore two questions: first, are all ethical code moral? Second, is it
possible the existence of a society that relies on individual moral impulse rather than on an ethical
code?
I agree with de Benedittis ‘s distinction between moral impulse and moral action. The first one
being a generic disposition (de Benedittis, 2005). I believe however that moral impulse can be
explained with the Junghian concept of archetype. Archetype is a cultural pattern inherited, who
forms the collective unconscious and at the same time, can be seen as the foundation of the
collective consciousness. As I will explore it more later, the formation of a moral ego independent
from the ethical code is possible because its foundation is in the collective unconscious, and for this
reason it can be partially autonomous from the ethical code. The moral ego is connected with
feelings, compassion, love, than with the law.
Are all moral codes Ethical? What can Antigone teach Durkheim?
Sophocles in his tragedy Antigone addresses the question of the existence of two moralities: one
that expresses the necessity of the group to define and defend itself with respect to the Other,
whether it be the internal or the external enemy; and the other that, instead, has its roots in the
individual conscience, in the ontological level where the feelings toward the other originate. In
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the confrontation between Antigone and Creonte we see the struggle between the two opposite
moralities.
Sophocles's tragedy describes what happens when the two moralities clash. The group does not
accept those who follow their conscience against the dominant ethical code, and their destiny is
to be both victims and heroes, in order to remain faithful to themselves. Those who, instead, are
motivated by the will to power must confront the deep feeling of guilt that originates from the
betrayal of the imperatives of their conscience, which, as Antigone reminds Creonte, are laws
older than those of Zeus3. Zeus is the symbol of the patriarchal social order, while the
imperatives imposed by the individual conscience do not belong to any social order, but are
rather the expression of the deep connection with the Other, which is previous to any social
order. In junghian terms, the archetype of the Self is the origin of those old laws, who comes
before the code of the city.
Sophocles' tragedy ends with the sacrificial act of Antigone who accepts facing death in order to
follow what her conscience tells her, and with the tragic discovery made by Creonte that his will
to power has brought him to lose what was most dear to him: his wife and his son, in other
words, his soul.
Sophocles does not say who is right, Antigone or Creonte: he describes the tragic destiny of
both, that is the impossibility to act differently than they did because each has its own reasons:
Antigone her imperative, Creonte the ethical code of the city.
Sophocles' tragedy shows that it is necessary to recognize the difference between the moral
impulse that comes from the individual conscience and the ethical code of a group. The first is
based on compassion, love and empathy, while the second has its reason to be in the interest of a
group to find a social cohesion that guarantees its own unity (Graziosi, 2006).
Sophocles has stated very clearly the existence of the two moralities and the antinomy between
them. Sophocles, however, wrote as a member of an ancient society in which the presence of an
individual conscience opposed to the collective one was considered a threat. In modern society
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and, in particular, in contemporary society the process of individualization has created the
existence of an individual conscience that can depart from the collective conscience and can
become a critical conscience without facing the death penalty. Within the frame work of modern
society, the struggle between Antigone and Creonte assumes, then, a tone less tragic: Antigone
can represent the possibility of the individual conscience to confront the ethical code, judging it
in the name of compassion and respect for human dignity.
Durkheim expressed the affirmation of these two values in his analysis of the process of the
birth of the civil religion connected to the development of individualism. Nevertheless,
Durkheim could not think in terms of individual conscience, he continued to think in terms of
law. The reasons behind his intellectual positions are two: a) for him the individual was
internally divided and could find his cohesiveness only through the internalization of the
morality of the group; b) he was not interested in explaining reality, history considering
exceptional people. He wanted to explain average people, how they behaved, how they felt and
thought. With respect to this aspect he stated his intentions clearly in his “Address to the
Lyceens of Sens”, at the debut of his career as a high school Professor 4. The average people
need rules, laws of behaviour in order to find orientation, meaning in life, for this reason
morality, defined as a set of rules of behaviour, is perceived both as duty and as desirable.
Durkheim’s mistake is to have disregarded the possibility for a mature individual to achieve
internal unity through contact with that layer where the feelings toward the other are, that is the
ontological level. He was the first to speak of the interrelation between the ontological and the
social level; however for him the ontological level could be experienced only as member of a
group.
With the development of individualism, the possibility of an individual conscience to reach the
moral impulse which gives it the strength to confront the ethical code is feasible, because the
process of secularization has left the experience of the sacred to the individual, therefore he can
live the connection between the sacred and morality as an autonomous experience (Weber,
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1918); this gives him the grounds for judging whether the dominant ethical code is moral or not.
This I believe is the foundation of the civil religion, which Durkheim has theorized, but for him
the foundations were in the laws of the group rather than in individual inner maturity.
In the pre-modern societies the ties with the group were very strong, therefore social and moral
man coincided. In modern society these ties are no longer strong, as Durkheim forecasted, and
consequently social and moral man do not coincide any more. The possibility of a civil religion
lies in the dialectic between a strong moral individual and the ethic of the group. The strong
moral individual can be that critical conscience that judges if the dominant ethical code is moral.
A society cannot exist without an ethical code, this is true even of contemporary society,
however we cannot accept a code as moral only because it is dominant. Durkheim never
confronted the question of the content of the ethical code. He limited himself to recognizing the
relativism of the ethical code and was at peace saying that every ethical code reflects the interest
of a society.
Contemporary society and the crisis of values: reason and morality
The development of individualism has reached a peak in contemporary society. Bauman in his two
books, Liquid modernity and Liquid love has pointed out that the main effects of contemporary
individualism are the formation of a personality totally free from any links and bonds, as well as
free from the capacity to recognize the other. Durkheim had already spoken of de-moralization,
also defined as a crisis of values, as the main tendency of modern society.
Can we still speak of a crisis of values in late modernity?
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I believe we are facing a deep transformation that has involved both the individual personality and
the nature of social relationships. The process of individualization that has characterized modern
society since the beginning has meant more freedom, but recently the process of globalization has
taken away old securities, making change, flexibility the other face of freedom (Sennett, 2001). A
series of social indicators support the theory that the loss of securities has made social crisis a fact,
not just a tendency: the spread of the use of drugs among adolescents and adults; the high divorce
rates in every country with divorce laws, the widespread violence and crimes in highly developed
countries; the very large number of cases of depression in highly developed countries. Depression
does not affect only one person, but millions of people. It is definitely a disease that makes us
spontaneously think of a pathological society, as suggested by different authors such as Ehrenberg,
Richard Sennet, Miguel Benasayag, Gérard Schmit5.
Benasayag and Schmit, for instance, analyze the interconnection between the crisis of the
individual and the crisis of the society, and they sustain that the individual crisis and the family
crisis are parts of the general social crisis: “We are facing, in contemporary western civilization,
the transition from a unlimited trust to a similar extreme mistrust in the future...Today there is an
atmosphere of pessimism that evokes a less bright tomorrow...pollution of every kind, social
inequalities, economic disasters, new diseases: the long list of threats has transformed the view of
the future from extreme positive to extreme negative... we live in an era dominated by those that
Spinoza called “the sad passions”. With this expression the philosopher did not refer to the sadness
of crying, but to the impotence and to the disgregation” (Benasayag, Schmit , 2003, pp 18 -20).
Social scientists and philosophers are not the only ones to speak of social crisis for contemporary
society; artists also denounce the same phenomenon. For example, Woody Allen with his movie
Match Point has given a good example of the crisis of values in contemporary society.
Allen describes the absence of a moral conflict in a man who kills his lover. A series of
coincidences allows him not to be caught, and then he is left alone with his conscience. The key
images of the film, which, in my view, show Allen’s intentions to explore a moral issue in the film,
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are those in which the protagonist reads Dostoyevsky’s book Crime and Punishment. Contrary to
Raskolnikov, the main character of Crime and Punishment 6, Chris, the protagonist of Allen’s film
does not go into a mystical crisis from which only punishment can save him. The ability of Chris to
live with his sins is shown by the scene in which he confronts his ghosts, the two women he has
killed, and he says: . “I can push the guilt under the rug and go on”; and when the old lady who
lived next door to his lover asks: “why me and your son, the child your lover was carrying” he says
“Always innocent people have been slain to make a grand scheme’. He then confirms his
ruthlessness when the ghost of his lover tells him to prepare himself to pay the price: he answers
with a total pessimism that, invoking Sophocles as support, claims that life has no meaning, even
though we yearn for meaning: “it would be fitting to be punished, some signs of justice, of
measures of hope for the possibility of meaning”. He is a young Irish man, who comes from a
Catholic family whose father had found Christ after losing his legs, that speaks those words. The
young man, in despair for meaning, has lost his faith, and consequently his morality.
Chris has lost his morality due to the social success he has achieved thanks to the marriage with a
rich woman. Once inside a family of the upper class, he assumes the moral attitudes of the new
family, expressed very clearly by the brother in law who, commenting on Chris’s father’s faith,
says: “to lose your legs and to find Christ is not a fair trade off”. For Chris to keep his legs has
meant to go beyond guilt, beyond good and evil, a condition that allows him to say: “when I had to
push the trigger I knew I could do it”.
Allen tells us that contemporary society has reached that stage where men can push guilt under the
rug and live without meaning, the will to power is sufficient to find a reason to exist. Nevertheless
at this stage he is totally a-moral, the new man, the man of many yeses, that Nietzsche saw as the
next step is yet to come.
I believe that differences between Chris and Raskolnikov can be attributed to the different societies
in which they lived. Raskolnikov belonged to a traditional society were the moral code had a strong
hold on the individual conscience and for this reason the guilty man could not confront his crime
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with any justification. Dostoyevsky believed that Russia could be the leading country in defeating
the materialistic attitudes of the western countries and in bringing a new era of spirituality. His
novels describe the existential crisis caused by the loss of values (Bouckaert, Ghesquiere, 2004).
Contrary to Dostoyevsky’s expectations, western countries have been able to pursue their process of
secularization, a polytheism has replaced the old traditional religious view, bringing in moral
relativism where before there was moral absolutism.
The connection Bauman makes between utilitarianism and morality is correct: the utilitarian
attitudes dominant in the market society do not allow the development of the moral attitudes. If
society recognizes instrumental rationality as central we cannot think that the individual will be able
to abandon it easily for moral attitudes that require sacrifice of self-interests.
Chris, the protagonist of Match Point, represents the postmodern subject who above all wants to
make something of his life, which for him means success measured in terms of wealth. Once he has
succeeded in his escalation to the upper class he defends it at any cost, even that of committing a
crime. Before the crime and after we see a person who thinks in purely utilitarian terms, no
emotions or feelings comes into the way.
This leads us to the central question, can society be a-moral while the individual develops his own
morality? As Camus said: “Can we be saints without God?
Sennett, in his analysis of the personal consequences of work in the new capitalism, tells the story
of Rico, a successful Italo-American, who has broken the ties with his working class family. His
financial success is due to his acceptance of change and flexibility in his work. He has a different
view with respect to the education he wants to give to his children. In opposition to the weak
relationships in the working place and in the neighbours, he wants to pass on permanent values. As
Sennett underlines “All values he has mentioned are rigid rules: a parent must know to say no; a
community requires commitment; being dependent from others is bad....But it is difficult to follow
such abstract rules” (Sennett, 2001, p. 26). Rico wishes to be a saint, at least for the sake of his
children, but he is just a man who cannot make his children to believe in his rigid ethical rules of
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conduct, because they are denied by his own working behaviour that follows the predominant rules
of conduct: flexibility and change.
Moral Ego vs. Ethical code, freedom and morality
The moral relativism of contemporary society has brought forward the question of the link
between freedom and morality.
Existentialists have seen the origin of morality in the possibility to make a choice. Kierkegaard,
who inspired modern existentialists, was the first to consider such question, and for him “to
exist as a human being means to exist ethically and to face perpetually new moral choices”
(Hubben, 1952, p. 26).
For Kierkegaard, to be a moral man is a necessity, is part of the process of becoming, but it is
not an automatic stage that everybody gets to. It is, instead, a matter of individual moral striving
and tension. He does not consider the contribution of society to the birth of moral man. He
speaks of the Single One, leaving the masses outside of his concern. As sociologists we need to
consider both the individual who is able to go beyond the collective and the great majority. To
recognize the presence of a moral impulse in human beings, as Kierkegaard, and some of the
modern existentialists do, does not give an answer with respect to the masses. The masses
follow rules, and without them they go back to a pre-ontological level where fear dominates
them and a regressive ego brings them under the rule of a leader 7.
Adorno, who has analyzed the regressive process beyond the formation of the masses, believes
that anxiety is not a state that the majority can stand. In this state the majority develops a
regressive ego that searches for a group in order to find security and to be relieved from the state
of ambiguity and anxiety the need to make a choice provokes. The freedom to make choices is
not a condition lived pleasantly by all. For this reason in spite of the development of
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individualism, in the last century we have seen the formation of Fascist Regimes that have
recreated a strong collective conscience, which has freed man from the burden of making
choices. As Escobar suggests, in contemporary society we have to speak of individualism
without individuals, therefore we have to think of individualism as an ideology (Escobar, 2006,
p. 122).
In my view it is necessary to distinguish between the Single One who enters into the process of
becoming and the majority formed by those who the moment they do not have rules of conduct,
enter into a state of meaninglessness that triggers the loss of identity. The alienation they
experience pushes them to seek to belong to a group in order to reconnect to the others and then
to themselves.
In order to explain the difference between the majority and the Single One it is necessary to
distinguish between the moral ego and the ethical ego. The moral ego develops as part of the
individual striving and the Single One achieves it after confronting anxiety and nothingness. In
junghian terms, the formation of the moral ego is the result of the process of individuation,
which cannot be accomplished without the re-connection with the Self. Jung defines the Self as
the center of the psyche, where the experience of the sacred lies (Jung, C. W. vol 10; 14;
Graziosi, 2004).
The Ethical Ego instead is the ego that develops following the moral conduct of a group. While
for the moral ego freedom is the dominant experience of his existence, for the ethical ego the
feeling of belonging is the dominant experience of his existence. More and more the need to be
part of a group emerges as the dominant tendency in contemporary society.
An example of the need to be part of a group is found in the recent explosion of religious groups
in the USA, the most individualist and secularized society: “The world’s leading economic and
military power is also-no one can misread the data-the world’s leading Bible-reading crusader
state, immersed in an Old Testament of stern prophets and bloody Middle Eastern battlefields”
(Phillips , 2006, p.101; 103)8.
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Phillips confirms that the possibility to make choices is used by many Americans for joining a
religious group: “Conversion on the part of adults-the deep personal experience of being “born
again” in Christ- is also far more important in the United States, with its emphasis on individual
choice and personal experience, than elsewhere” (Phillips, 2006, p. 106)9.
Contemporary man has learned how to push guilt under the rug, however, to live with the
burden of a moral choice to make, takes too much responsibility, and the masses flee the anxiety
of the ambiguity of making a choice by joining a group in order to feel secure and strong. When
this choice can not be made, depression is the other solution (Ehrenberg, 1998). The ghost of
Durkheim seems to come back strongly, for he predicted the necessity of the group as a way to
avoid anomy.
The main requirement of a moral ego is “to be” for the others, but the majority prefer being for
themselves with the others. We can think, however, that in contemporary society the possibility
of the formation of strong subjectivity is not totally lost thanks to the process of secularization.
Those who are able to develop a moral ego can have the role to reflect on the morality of the
ethical code in order to avoid the a-moral tendencies of the group.
Sociology of morality as a central field
In my paper I have underlined the necessity to explore deeply a series of questions relating to
the morality in the contemporary society that justify Durkheim’s belief that the sociology of
morality is a central field of enquiry. While Durkheim considered crucial to explore the social
nature of morality, today is crucial to explore questions such as : 1) is the ethic of a group
always moral? 2) how to evaluate the morality of a social code? 3) which are the criteria for
evaluating an ethical code: human dignity or the need of social cohesion for the survival of the
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group ? 4) Last but not least, feelings must play a role in moral questions10? This last question
was already posed by the Comte in his late years, when he openly stated the necessity to
consider solidarity as the central question of modernity and gave to the new science, Sociology,
the task to formulate a laic morality.
References
Bauman, Zygmunt, 1992. Modernità e Olocausto, Bologna, Il Mulino.
Bauman, Zygmunt, 2003. Liquid love, Cambrdige, Polity Press
Bauman, Zygmunt, 2000. Liquid modernity, Cambridge, Polity Press.
Bellah, Robert N., 1973 Emile Durkheim, on Morality and society, The University of Chicago
Press, Chicago.
Bouckaert, Luk, Chesquiere, Rita, 2004, ‘Dostoyesky’s Grand Inquisitor as a Mirror for the Ethics
of Institutions’, Journal of Business Ethics, Kluwer Academic Publisher, 53: 29-37.
de Benedittis, 2005, E’ possible una sociologia di Schindler? Appunti per una sociologia
dell’azione morale, Working papers del Dipartimento di Studi Sociali e Politici.
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor, [1866] 2004. Crime and Punishment, Philadelphia: Chelsea House
Publishers.
Durkheim, Emile, [1887] 1969 ‘La science positive de la morale en Allemagne’, Journal
sociologique, Paris, Presses universitaires de France.
Durkheim, Emile, 1898. ‘Représentation individuelle et représentations collective’ Revue de
métaphysique et de morale, 6: 273-302.
Durkheim, Emile, [1898-1911]1953. Sociology and Philosophy, Glencoe, Ill, Free Press.
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Durkheim, Emile, [1902-1906] 1961. Moral Education, New York, Free Press.
Durkheim, Emile, 1[1888] 1967. “Discours aux Lycéens de Sens” Cahiers Internationaux de
sociologie 43: 25-32.
Gallup Poll, 2004.
Ehrenberg, Alain, 1998, La fatigue d’étre soi. Depression and société, Paris, Editions Odile Jacob.
Escobar, Roberto, 1997, Metamorfosi della paura, Bologna, Il Mulino.
Escobar, Roberto, 2006, La libertà negli occhi, Bologna, Il Mulino.
Freud, S. ([1921]1959) Group Psychology and the analysis of the Ego. New York-London: W.W.
Norton & Company.
Graziosi, Mariolina, 2006, ‘Amore e Misericordia’, Anima, Bergamo, Moretti e Vitali, pp. 45-63.
Graziosi, Mariolina, 2004, Simone Weil, in cerca delle radici eterne, Anima, Moretti e Vitali.
Hubben,Williem, 1952. Four Prophets of our destiny, New York the Macmillan Company.
Carl Gustav Jung, 1951, Psychology and Religion, , Collected Works, vol. 11, Princeton,
University of Princeton Press.
Philips, Kevin, 2006. American Theocracy, New York:Viking.
Newsweek Poll, December 2000, 2004.
Pizzorno, Allessandro. 1963. ‘Lecture actuelle de Durkheim’ Archives de sociologie européennes,
4: 1-36.
Sophocles, 1954. Antigone, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press.
Sennett Richard, 2001, L’uomo flessibile, Milano, Feltrinelli.
Zambrano Maria, [1983] 2001. La tomba di Antigone, Milano, La Tartaruga.
Weber, Max, 1918 [1966], Il lavoro intellettuale come professione, Torino, Einaudi.
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Footnotes
1
About the period when Durkheim lived, Bellah says: “He was a high priest and theologian of the Third Republic and a
prophet calling not only modern France but modern Western society generally to mend its ways in the face of a great
social and moral crisis…The social context in which Durkheim came to define his life was decisively affected when he
was twelve years old by the crushing defeat of France by Germany in the War of 1870 and by the subsequent fall of the
second Empire and the establishment of the Third French Republic. This great social change became the objective
reference point to his developing sense of calling” (1973: x –xi-xii).
2
Escobar in his book Metamorfosi della paura analyzes the social and individual process of formation of the Other. It
seems particularly important his statement that in the process of making the Other it isn’t involved just a simple and
superficial moral question concerning tolerance or rejection, but much more. It is involved the ability to tolerate the
view of an abyss that makes in danger to b ourselves (Escobar, 1997, p. 157.
3
Zambrano in her analysis of Antigone has spoken of auroral conscience. It is the conscience that has not reached the
level of separation between feelings and logos, between love and logos. “Life in its retrieving does not leave something
abstract, a truth without heart but the knowledge that is born in the inner being that opens it and at the same time
transcends it” ( 2001,p. 27).
4
Address delivered at prize-day ceremonies on 6 August 1883 at the Lycée of Sens, where Durkheim taught before
going to Bordeaux. (Bellah, 1973, p. 25).
5
Depression is not a biological disease, even if there is a chemical imbalance involved, but a psychological disease
rooted in the dominant social conditions of contemporary society. Ehrenberg sustains the theory that depression is the
natural result of the social interaction predominant in contemporary society which is not any more based on norms
grounded on guilt and discipline but on responsibility and the ability to take decisions. Depression is the individual
answer to the frustration and fatigue people suffer in the process to become themselves (Ehrenberg, 1998).
6
Dostoyevsky’s novel tells the story of a crime committed by Raskolnikov who murdered an old moneylender and her
sister. After the crime he goes completely to pieces. What torments him is the pangs of his conscience. He feels he has
done something beyond redemption; something that cuts him off from his fellows and it is this knowledge, which
motivates all his thoughts and all his actions ([1866] 2004).
7
Freud has analyzed the formation of the masses focusing on the libidinal ties between the leader and the masses. He
also sees a regressive ego in the case of the mass, however he considers the role of the ego ideal rather than a primitive
emotion like fear (Freud, 1921).
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8
Data from a series of survey show that 55% of a national sample answered yes to the question “Is the Bible literally
accurate”; 94% of the national population believed in God in 2000, while 92% believed in God in 2004; 84% believed
in miracles in 2000, while 82% believed in miracles in 2004; 81% believed in Heaven in 2004, 78% believed in Angels
in the same year, 77% believed in Hell, 70 % believed in Satan/the Devil. Newsweek Poll, December 2000, 2004.
Gallup Poll, 2004. (Philips, 2006,p. 102).
9
In the mid-1980’s some 33 percent of the respondents told the Gallup Poll they had been “born again”; by the early
2000s the number had climbed to 44 to 46 per cent. George Bush’s own tale of coming to God struck a chord in the
churchgoing Unites States that would have been impossible in less-observant Europe. Even in kindred Canada,
supposedly no prime minister has ever claimed to be born again. Phillips, op.cit., p.106. “Polls seem to have found the
highest percentages of Americans claiming to have been born again in 2001-2003 in the wake of September 11. By
2005, the number was down to 42 per cent”. (Phillips, 2006, p. 405) .
10
de Benedittis in his working paper E’ possibile una sociologia di Schindler? Appunti per una sociologia dell’azione
morale, underlines the need to include emotions and passions in the analysis of moral actions. (de Benedittis, p. 10).
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