Absence of Society and Cultivation of Moral Individual——Re-examining Durkheim’s Moral Education

Durkheim attributed French social anomie to a deficiency of collective consciousness. In his view, individuals gained more and more opportunities for free development in the society with the acceleration of social division of labor, making it possible for individuals to achieve free development apart from the society.The key to solve the problem of social anomie is to establish a new moral system to arouse people’s collective consciousness, guide individuals to discard extreme individualism, and cultivate individuals with moral consciousness.Durkheim believed that individuals should have moral consciousness in the general sense: the spirit of discipline, the sense of group attachment and the spirit of autonomy. Durkheim firmly believed that school education was the most effective way to cultivate moral individuals, and teacher authority and school punishment could cultivate children’s respect and obedience to discipline. School environment and teaching content can cultivate students’ attachment to the group, and then rise to the attachment to the society. Science teaching can guide children to use reason to understand society and morality, and eventually train children to be moral individuals who abide by norms and attach to groups and realize rational freedom.