Moralitet, samfundsmæssighed og handlingsanalyse

Abstract

Through a historical and theoretical discussion of the durkheimian concept of "solidarity" and the concepts of "ideology" and "terror" (as they were developed during the French Revolution), it is attempted to develop a conceptualization of the relationship
between morality and "social cohesion" (in the sense of: cohesion of the society). This relationship is thus treated in connection with the constitution of sociology, as I am following the thesis, that the "sciences of social behaviour" can be seen as a "scientification"
of the problems of morality. Furthermore this relationship between morality and "social cohesion" is treated in connection with the question of the political foundation of solidarity in society. Theoretically I try to show, that the various scientific disciplines, whose subject is the social activity of man, are forced to conceive the problems of morality through a "doubling" of the concept of the subject, that is, they have to recognize subjectivity in the form of an individual subject and in the form of a collective subject. Secondly I try to show, that they are also forced to conceive the universal conditions of "social cohesion", on one side, as "inner" competences of action and, on the other side, as "outer" institutions of regulation and codification. One can put forward, that these conditions of "social cohesion" are in fact moral conditions, and that the practical realization of these conditions in social agency, - that is when we actually act as "responsible" social agents and as "normal" language-users, therefore should not be seen as an apriorical condition of the scientific understanding of social life.