Durkheim and Dewey and the challenge of contemporary moral education

Abstract

John Dewey and Emile Durkheim are philosophical giants in the field of moral education. This paper compares and contrasts their respective visions for moral education and contextualizes the comparison in the profound intellectual and social changes modernity was casting throughout the world. They were transitional figures that attempted to make education responsive to those novel conditions and forces. Toward this end, Dewey and Durkheim, though they differed in key areas, articulated the moral sources and authority on which their respective visions for education depended. In as much as the contemporary discourse on moral education lacks this articulation, there is much to be learned from examining their work. Though the current cultural context differs from that of Dewey and Durkheim, their approach to addressing these questions can inform our task in the present.

Notes

1. It is difficult to assess the degree to which they were in intellectual dialogue or dependent on one another on the topic of moral education. Durkheim gave lectures on pragmatism in 1913–14, largely arguing against some of the foundational elements of that system. His primary critique in those lectures, however, concerned William James. John Dewey's work on the social implications of pragmatism came later and, while Durkheim addressed it, it was not a central concern. See Durkheim's Pragmatism and sociology (1983), Lukes' excellent discussion of the lectures (1972, pp. 485–496), and Rawls' helpful essay, which addresses misinterpretations of Durkheim's critique of pragmatism (1997). Although direct intellectual dialogue seems limited, see Kloppenberg (1986, p. 485, Note 7) for a brief discussion of Durkheim's ‘counterpragmatic thrust’ and Dewey's criticism of Durkheim as too positivistic. Durkheim is in dialogue (at least tangentially) in his lectures on pragmatism (1983) while Dewey offers criticism of the ‘Durkheim school of collective mind’ in an essay on social psychology (1985, p. 60). The focus of this paper is the educational implications of Dewey and Durkheim's ideas.

2. The term ‘moral education’ is used broadly here, particularly to include what is formally termed ‘citizenship education’. Though there are important differences (Althof & Berkowitz, 2006), I use moral education to include both concepts because Dewey and Durkheim did not necessarily distinguish between them in their own thought.

3. It was generally a certain type of individualism that Dewey and Durkheim denounced. Both men embraced individualism to varying degrees. Dewey's acceptance will be clearly evident later; Durkheim saw individualism as ‘a social product, like all moralities and religions. The individual receives from society even the moral beliefs that deify him. This is what Kant and Rousseau did not understand. They wished to deduce their individualist ethics not from society, but from the notion of the isolated individual’. It was, for Durkheim, therefore ‘possible without contradiction, to be an individualist while asserting that the individual is a product of society, rather than its cause’ (quoted in Lukes, 1972, pp. 339–340).

4. In fact, the individual is a product of society. See Note 3.

5. In this aspect, Durkheim was persuaded by Kant's insistence on the imperative or obligatory character of moral rules. But he was probably only Kantian to that extent. He differed from Kant in that the obligatory nature of moral law did not derive from its content, but from the authority vested in the source of the rule: society itself. (See below, and also Giddens, 1978, p. 65).

6. It is important to note that this is not external in the sense of a transcendent, unchanging order. The substitution of society for the divine bears significant changes, namely a relative rather than universal characteristic to authority: ‘Authority does not reside in some external, objective fact, which logically implies and necessarily produces morality. It is a matter of opinion, and opinion is a collective thing. It is the judgment of the group…all moral authority must be social in its origin’ (Durkheim, 1961, p. 91). Like Dewey, Durkheim has been charged with a subjective relativism in his understanding of morality. Because of its social roots, it will vary from society to society. For Durkheim though, the morality a society constructs nonetheless carries a divine‐like authority.

7. Joan Goodman (2006a, 2006b) has traced nuanced differences toward school discipline in the theoretical work of Dewey and Durkheim. See also Arum (2003), who advocates drawing upon both Dewey and Durkheim to restore an appropriate moral authority for school discipline.

8. While this contrast merits much deeper reflection, my purpose here is to briefly suggest that approaches to moral education will always be localized in particular cultural and historical contexts.

9. Although there are many voices in this chorus, see Emirbayer (1989), Hunter (2000) and the essays in Ravitch & Viteritti (Eds) (2001) for varied critiques on American moral and civic education. For a perspective on a ‘crisis’ in European education, see ‘Where the future is a dead end’ Newsweek, 12 June 2006. Available online at: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13124097/site/newsweek/ (accessed 10 January 2006).

10. For a timeline, see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4413964.stm; for analysis, see Catharine Wihtol de Wenden, Urban riots in France, SAIS Review of International Affairs, 26.2.2006, 47–53. See also Asad (2006) on the ‘Islamic veil affair’.

11. See the Spring/Summer 2006 issue of The Hedgehog Review ‘After secularization’ Vol. 8 (1 & 2), especially José Casanova, Rethinking secularization: a global comparative perspective.

12. Although the terms do not originate with him, see Casanova (2006).