DURKHEIM, MORALITY AND MODERNITY - COLLECTIVE EFFERVESCENCE, HOMO DUPLEX AND THE SOURCES OF MORAL ACTION

The issue of morality has lost its position of importance within the d iscipline, yet a growing number of sociologists interested in the ambi valent character of (post) modernity have returned to this subject in recent years. This article examines the revival of interest in moralit y and suggests it would benefit by engaging creatively with Durkheim's writings on home duplex collective effervescence, and the social cons truction of moral orders. After examining this relatively neglected pa rt of Durkheim's work, developed most fully in his (1995 [1912]) The E lementary Forms of Religious Life, we focus on two of the most influen tial contemporary commentators on morality, Bauman and Giddens. Having evaluated the limitations of their respective approaches (which assoc iate the sources of morality respectively with a methodologically indi vidualistic bodily impulse of 'being for the other', and with an incre asingly global cognitive reflexivity), we analyse recent writings whic h have attempted to transcend such difficulties by engaging with some of the tensions in Durkheim's account of sacred moral orders. These hi ghlight those features of Durkheim's work which continue to offer a pr oductive basis on which to develop further a thoroughly sociological a ppreciation of morality.