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Abstract: This essay explores a key issue in Durkheim's work, namely the relationship between justice and charity, and argues that the key to this, in turn, is to be found in an analysis of the gift. Beginning with his early lycée lectures and their account of justice and charity in relation to the moral law, it goes on to suggest that throughout his work there is an underlying concern with the gift - even or especially in his concern with the contract. This is evident in his vision of a society based on a 'spontaneous' division of labour, as well as in his critique of the inequalities built into existing society through the institution of inheritance. But the essay also draws on modern French discussions of the gift, and their concern with issues of mutuality, reciprocity and recognition. This helps to identify the approach to the gift that underlies Durkheim's sociology, and to bring out its interest and importance.
Keywords: charity, Durkheim, justice, the contract, the dualism of human nature, the gift
'Justice is full of charity'
The Division of Labour (1893: 130)
Introduction
What is the moral law? This is a question discussed in student lecture-notes of the philosophy course that Durkheim taught, early in his career, at the lycée de Sens. And the lecture on the moral law gets going with versions of the formula: 'Agis toujours dans le but de développer ta personnalité' (Lalande 1884: lecture 60). However, as it then proceeds to warn: 'Mais cette formule ne nous fait pas sortir du moi, de l'égoïsme. La loi ainsi formulée nous ordonne bien de respecter notre personnalité, mais ne règle pas nos rapports avec autrui'. Yet, as it insists, it is essential that the moral law determines our relations with our fellow beings.
So, to be sure, the moral law is always to act with the goal of developing your personality, but - and this is the norm - in such a way that the other can always act with the goal of developing their own. Accordingly, in order that I do not use the other as a means for myself - in an immediate respect for the law - it follows that the development of my personality as an end...