France's annual Bac exams - which regulate access to higher education
in France - kicked off today with Philosophy and French Lit. The Philosophy
text for comment struck me as interesting; from sociologist Emil Durkheim. Important
becuse society at this point is particularly embroilled in the wealth issue; but also dated
because there is no concern there for the Environmental, the living ...Below:
The text to be commented on is De la Division du travail social (1893)
“It is the same with morality. Each nation has its own morality, which is determined by the conditions in which it lives. One cannot therefore instill in it another, however high, without disorganizing it, and such disturbances cannot but be painfully felt by individuals. But does not the morality of each society, taken in itself, include an indefinite development of the virtues it recommends? Not at all. To act morally is to do one's duty, and all duty is subject to definition. It is limited by the other duties: one cannot give oneself too completely to others without loosing oneself; one cannot develop one's personality to excess without falling into selfishness. On the other hand, the set of our duties is itself limited by the other demands of our nature. If it is necessary that certain forms of conduct be subject to this imperative regulation which is characteristic of morality, there are others, on the contrary, which are naturally resistant to it and which nevertheless are essential. Morality cannot rule over industrial, commercial, etc. functions without paralyzing them, and yet they are vital; thus, to consider wealth as immoral is no less a fatal error than to see wealth as the good par excellence. There can therefore be excesses of morality, from which morality, moreover, is the first to suffer; because, as its immediate object is to regulate our temporal life, it cannot divert us from it without itself drying up the matter to which it applies. "
Emil Durkheim 'De la division du travail social' 1893
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