ABSTRACT
Narratives of moral decline are influential in current popular and intellectual Western debate but also run deep in a sociological tradition of moral crisis or loss. This chapter outlines and critiques a dominant genre of moral ‘decline’ sociology. The chapter begins with Durkheim’s original analysis of the moral infirmity of modernity before mapping his influence within two more recent strands of ‘loss’ sociology: the ‘cultural pessimists’ (Reiff, 1966; Bell, 1976; Lasch, 1979) and the ‘communitarians’ (Etzioni, 1994; Bellah et al., 1996; MacIntyre, 1985). These two theoretical positions are critiqued for their shared ontological debt to Durkheim’s model of human nature. Three specific assumptions are identified and critiqued: view of human nature and self; ‘society’ as the necessary source of morality; and the functions of morality. This chapter sets the foundation for the discussion of more positive theoretical accounts of morality developed in Chapter 3.
