Abstract:

Was Durkheim a nationalist or a cosmopolitan? To answer the question, the author proposes to go to Durkheim’s theoretical context of the moral discourse. Durkheim’s claim that morality begins with group membership definitely means that, in his analysis, different groups would differ in their levels. In the formative process of morality, the national state is undoubtedly given priority. If we must go back to the national state to interpret the formation of morality, this requires achieving cosmopolitanism within the national state. Therefore, Durkheim argued that, when the group’s ideal is just the specific expression of the human ideal, and when the civic ideal combines with the human general ideal to a great extent, we can realize the fusion of the specific and the general on the basis of the human nature, or move the universal morality downward to be realized in group morality. If cosmopolitanism must depend upon patriotism to come true, or if we cannot talk about the universal morality in the global context or human society, this means that we need go by means of internal construction in the national state to achieve the cosmopolitan ideal. This is distinctively liberal nationalism. At the same time, the formation of morality is not only based on group membership but also needs awareness that this qualification has a political basis. In other words, we should make corporate groups as politics participating groups engaged in the political life of the country as appropriate electoral units. Only when the country is subject to the constraint of such secondary intermediary political groups, can personal freedom be effectively protected. Therefore, Durkheim analyzed the modern social morality phenomenon on the basis of combined sense of “society” and “the social.” Finally, the article points out that in order to distinguish themselves from Durkheim’s theory of moral evolution, others are seeking their legitimacy in an era of globalization and pluralism including nationalism and a variety of identities, which undoubtedly challenges Durkheim’s theory of moral evolution.

Key words: cosmopolitanism, group, liberal nationalism, morality