Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-mp689 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T16:15:43.978Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Durkheim on Social Justice: The Argument from “Organic Solidarity”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 November 2017

LISA HERZOG
LISA HERZOG*
Affiliation:
Technical University of Munich
*
Lisa Herzog is an Assistant Professor of Political Philosophy and Theory at the Technical University of Munich, School of Governance, Richard-Wagner-Straße 1, 80333 München, Germany (lisa.herzog@hfp.tum.de)
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article reintroduces a long-forgotten argument into the debate about social justice: Durkheim's argument from “organic solidarity,” as presented in The Division of Labor in Society. “Organic solidarity” is solidarity based on differentiation. According to Durkheim, it grows out of the division of labor, but only if the latter happens “spontaneously.” Social inequality creates obstacles to such spontaneity because it distorts prices, such that they are perceived as unjust, and it undermines equality of opportunity. Hence, Durkheim's argument connects commutative justice and distributive justice. The article argues that Durkheim's argument is plausible, interesting, and relevant for today. After presenting the argument, discussing its structure and methodology, and evaluating its plausibility by drawing on related contemporary debates, it focuses on the problem of the perception of social justice and the possibility of ideological distortions. It concludes by sketching the research program that follows from Durkheim's argument.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 112 , Issue 1 , February 2018 , pp. 112 - 124
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

I would like to thank Andrew Walton and Mark Reiff as well as the members of the research colloquium at the Centre Walras Pareto, Université de Lausanne, for comments on earlier drafts and very helpful discussions. The editors and three reviewers of the APSR have provided me with extremely helpful comments and suggestions, for which I am very grateful.

References

REFERENCES

Arneson, Richard. 2015. “Equality of Opportunity”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta, https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2015/entries/equal-opportunity/.Google Scholar
Bowring, Finn. 2016. “The Individual and Society in Durkheim: Unpicking the Contradictions.” European Journal of Social Theory 19 (1): 21–38.Google Scholar
Chambers, Clare. 2009. “Each Outcome is Another Opportunity: Problems with the Moment of Equal Opportunity.” Politics, Philosophy & Economics 8 (4): 374–400.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cladis, Mark S. 1992. A Communitarian Defense of Liberalism: Emile Durkheim and Contemporary Social Theory. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Cladis, Mark S. 2008. “Beyond Solidarity? Durkheim and Twenty-First Century Democracy in a Global Age.” In: The Cambridge Companion to Durkheim, eds. Jeffrey, C. Alexander and Philip Smith, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 383–409.Google Scholar
Cohen, G.A. 2008. Rescuing Justice and Equality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Cotterrell, Roger. 2010. “Durkheim on Justice, Morals and Politics.” In Émile Durkheim: Justice, Morality and Politics, ed. Cotterrell, R., xi–xxiv. Farnham: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Cotterrell, Roger. 2011. “Justice, Dignity, Torture, Headscarves: Can Durkheim's Sociology Clarify Legal Values?” Social & Legal Studies 20 (1): 3–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cristi, Marcela. 2012. “Durkheim on Moral Individualism, Social Justice, and Rights: A Gendered Construction of Rights.” Canadian Journal of Sociology/Cahiers Canadiens de Sociologie 37 (4): 409–38.Google Scholar
Durkheim, Émile. 1933 [1893]. The Division of Labor in Society, translated by Simpson, George. Glencoe, IL: Free Press.Google Scholar
Durkheim, Émile. 1969 [1898]. “Durkheim's ‘Individualism and the Intellectuals’, introduced by Steven Lukes.” Political Studies XVII (1): 14–30.Google Scholar
Dzur, Albert W. 2008. Democratic Professionalism: Citizen Participation and the Reconstruction of Professional Ethics. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press.Google Scholar
Elegido, Juan Manuel. 2009. “The Just Price: Three Insights from the Salamanca School.” Journal of Business Ethics 90: 29–46.Google Scholar
Elegido, Juan Manuel. 2015. “The Just Price as the Price Obtainable in an Open Market. “Journal of Business Ethics 130: 557–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Estlund, Cynthia. 2003. Working Together. How Workplace Bonds Strengthen a Diverse Democracy. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Fischbacher, U., Gächter, S., and Fehr, E.. 2001. “Are People Conditionally Cooperative? Evidence from a Public Goods Experiment.” Economics Letters 71 (3): 397–404.Google Scholar
Fishkin, Joseph. 2014. Bottlenecks. A New Theory of Equal Opportunity. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fleischacker, Samuel. 2004. A Short History of Distributive Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Gelderblom, Derik. 2005. “The Just Community: Emile Durkheim on Liberalism and Society.” In Theories of Social and Economic Justice, ed. der Walt, Aj van. Stellenbosch: Sun Press, 108–27.Google Scholar
Geuss, Raymond. 2008. Philosophy and Real Politics. Princeton/Oxford: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Giddens, Anthony. 1978. Durkheim. Hassocks: The Harvester Press Limited.Google Scholar
Giddens, Anthony, ed. 1986. Durkheim on Politics and the State. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Granovetter, Mark. 1985. “Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem of Embeddedness.” The American Journal of Sociology 91 (3): 481–510.Google Scholar
Heath, Joseph. 2009. “The Uses and Abuses of Agency Theory.” Business Ethics Quarterly 19 (4): 497–528.Google Scholar
Herzog, Lisa, and Zacka, Bernardo. 2017. “Fieldwork in Political Theory. Five Arguments for an Ethnographic Sensibility.” British Journal of Political Science, first view.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, E. A. J. 1938. “Just Price in an Unjust World.” International Journal of Ethics 48 (2): 165–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kahneman, Daniel, Knetsch, Jack L., and Thaler, Richard H.. 1986. “Fairness and the Assumptions of Economics.” Journal of Business 59 (4): 285–300.Google Scholar
Koehn, Daryl, and Wilbratte, Barry. 2015. “A Defense of a Thomistic Concept of the Just Price.” Business Ethics Quarterly 22 (3): 501–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kraus, Michael W., and Jacinth, J.X. Tan. 2015. “Americans overestimate social class mobility.” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 58: 101--11.Google Scholar
Kunda, Gideon. 1996. Engineering Culture. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Lukes, Steven. 1985. Emile Durkheim: His Life and Work, a Historical and Critical Study. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Norton, Michael I., and Ariely, Dan. 2011. “Building a Better America – One Wealth Quintile at a Time.” Perspectives on Psychological Science 6 (1): 9–12.Google Scholar
Piketty, Thomas. 2014. Capital in the 21st Century. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Poggi, Gianfranco. 2000. Durkheim. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Pope, Whitney, and Johnson, Barclay D.. 1983. “Inside Organic Solidarity.” American Sociological Review 48 (5): 681–92.Google Scholar
Rawls, John. 1999. A Theory of Justice. Revised edition. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Rawls, John. 2003. Justice as Fairness: A Restatement. Cambridge/MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Rawls, Anne. 2003. “Conflict as a Foundation for Consensus: Contradictions of Industrial Capitalism in Book III of Durkheim's Division of Labor .” Critical Sociology 29 (3): 295–335.Google Scholar
Reiff, Mark R. 2013. Exploitation and Economic Justice in the Liberal Capitalist State. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ronzoni, Miriam. 2008. “What Makes a Basic Structure Just?” Res Publica 14: 203–18.Google Scholar
Ronzoni, Miriam. 2009. “The Global Order: A Case of Background Injustice? A Practice-Dependent Account.” Philosophy & Public Affairs 37 (3): 229–56.Google Scholar
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. 1997. The Social Contract’ and Other Later Political Writings, ed. Gourevitch, Victor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sen, Amartya. 2006. “What Do We Want From A Theory Of Justice?” The Journal of Philosophy 53 (5): 215–38.Google Scholar
Sherman, Rachel. 2007. Class Acts: Service and Inequality in Luxury Hotels. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Simmons, A. John. 2010. “Ideal and Nonideal Theory.” Philosophy & Public Affairs 38 (1), 5–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sirianni, Carmen J. 1984. “Justice and the division of labour: a reconsideration of Durkheim's Division of Labour in Society .” The Sociological Review 32 (3): 449–70.Google Scholar
Stanley, Jason. 2015. How Propaganda Works. Princeton/Oxford: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Stedman Jones, Susan. 2001. Durkheim Reconsidered. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
Stiglitz, Joseph. 2013. “Equal Opportunity, Our National Myth.” New York Times (February 16), https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/16/equal-opportunity-our-national-myth/.Google Scholar
Sullivan, William. M. 2005. Work and Integrity: the Crisis and Promise of Professionalism in America. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.Google Scholar
Tiryakian, Edward A. 2008. “Durkheim, solidarity, and September 11.” In The Cambridge Companion to Durkheim, eds. Alexander, Jeffrey C. and Smith, Philip. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 305–21.Google Scholar
Walton, Andrew, with Camia, Valeria. 2013. “Fraternal Society in Rawls’ Property-Owning Democracy.” Analyse & Kritik 01/2013: 163–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wertheimer, Alan. 1996. Exploitation. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Wilkinson, Richard G., and Pickett, Kate. 2009. The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better. London: Allen Lane.Google Scholar