Durkheim ethics and its reconciliation of relativism and objectivism

Abstract

This thesis will argue that a reconciliation of the opposing moral beliefs of moral relativism and moral objectivism can be found in the moral philosophical work of famed sociologist Emile Durkheim. This can be understood by first recognising that there are multiple facets to morality that form its concept, and these facets are capable of being both relativist and objectivist. By the merit of these facets co-existing, relativist and objectivist notions are therefore similarly able to co-exist without being paradoxical. This dissertation will be clarification to how this is possible.