Synopses & Reviews
This book seeks to provide a fully comprehensive and systematic account of Durkheims legal theory. Indeed, because his writings on law and on the sociology of law are scattered throughout his work, this book is in fact the first attempt in English to provide a detailed analysis of the entirety of Durkheims legal thought.
The author argues that for Durkheim legal questions and moral questions were ultimately inseparable—not so much because law and morality cannot be analytically disentangled (as some legal philosophers argue), as because morality is embodied in the conditions of social life, the rules for which are articulated by law. Thus, for Durkheim, the study of law was an absolutely essential and central part of the sociological enterprise.
Law aspires to express the moral commitments of people living in many different kinds of relationships of community, reflecting the values of those whose life it regulates. Durkheims writings have a parallel aspiration: they use history, ethnography, and social theory to uncover the intricate and shifting moral foundations of law—foundations uncovered empirically by studying the social phenomena in which they reside, and by understanding the nature of those phenomena and the conditions of their being.
Review
". . .[Emile Durkheim: Law in a Moral Domain] is learned, lucid, and tellingly written, with none of the opacity or clumsiness that can so mar sociological theorizing. It is evenhanded in its judgments."—Social Forces
Review
"The excellence of this book is not merely in its clear, concise readability, but more importantly in showing in this examination of a class sociologist, how law, philosophy and sociology fit together."—Social and Legal Studies
Synopsis
“. . .[Emile Durkheim: Law in a Moral Domain] is learned, lucid, and tellingly written, with none of the opacity or clumsiness that can so mar sociological theorizing. It is evenhanded in its judgments.”—Social Forces
“The excellence of this book is not merely in its clear, concise readability, but more importantly in showing in this examination of a class sociologist, how law, philosophy and sociology fit together.”—Social and Legal Studies
Synopsis
This book seeks to provide a fully comprehensive and systematic account of Durkheim's legal theory. Because his writings on law and on the sociology of law are scattered throughout his work, this book is in fact the first attempt in English to provide a detailed analysis of the entirety of Durkheim's legal thought.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. [259]-268) and index.
About the Author
Roger Cotterrell is Professor of Legal Theory in the Faculty of Law at Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London. He is the author of several books, most recently Law's Community: Legal Theory in Sociological Perspective.