宗教、道德與社會秩序－涂爾幹社會理論的當代論述

Religion, Morality and Social Order: Durkheim's Social Theory in Contemporary Perspectives

陳慎慶(Chan Shun Hing)

《道風：漢語神學學刊》 10期 (1999/01) Pp. 167-183+254-255

並列摘要

It is generally agreed that in the late 1890s and until his death in 1914 Durkheim developed a theory of secular society that emphasized the independent causal importance of symbolic sacred and profane, the social significance of ritual behaviour, and the interrelation between symbolic classification, ritual processes and the formation of social solidarity. This paper attempts to examine the contemporary discussions on the late Durkheimian conception of religion in relation to morality and social order, in particular, the role of ＂the cult of individual＂, the integrative function of rituals, the various interpretations of civil religion, and their dynamics in relation to the construction of social solidarity in modern society. First, Durkheim foresaw that the idea of the worth and dignity of the individual would emerge as a religious object or ideal in modern society. However, in his theory of ＂the cult of the individual＂, Durkheim did not offer a systematic analysis of the social mechanism which mediated the relationship between social structure and the conscience collective. He did not delineate the specific factors that contributed to the emergence of the ＂cult of man＂. Second, sociologists in the 1960s selected rituals that ostensibly supported their view of social integration around a single value-system. Contemporary discussions have criticized the approach of the 1960s and suggested that Durkheim's theory of ritual could extend to his model of the generation of moral solidarity by structural arrangement of social interaction, and of the charging of symbols with emotional reactivity, especially via ritual, which ties together the different elements of a theory of stratification and conflict. Third, it is observed that in Durhkeim's sociology there is an implicit theory of civil religion. As suggested by Hans-Peter Müller, the ideal of ＂cult of the individual＂ as the moral individualism has to be spread throughout the multiple web of specific morals and to be anchored institutionally. The more the individualistic ethic is morally and institutionally anchored, the more it contributes to the stability of social order.