Sociology Course I-Module III

Theoretical perspectives in sociology

Dr. Deepmala Baghel

Assistance professor of sociology
MNLU, Nagpur
• Social Forces in the Development of Sociological Theory

• Revolutions- political
• Industrialization and its social impact

• Major aspects
• Study of social change
• Establishment of social order
• Religious order within society
• Scientific thinking of society
• laws of social life
 Auguste Comte (1798-1857)

• Father of sociology-Coined the term “sociology”

• Positive Philosophy (1896)
• Set out to develop the “science of man” that would be based on empirical observation
• Focused on two aspects of society:
• Social Statics—forces which produce order and stability
• Social Dynamics—forces which contribute to social change

• Law of three stage- the of human progress

• Comte insists repeatedly that “intellectual evolution is the preponderant principle” of his
explanation of human progress . . . (Coser 1971:8)
• Theological, (prior to 1300 AD)
• Metaphysical (1300 to 1800 AD)
• Positivist (1800 AD onwards)
 EMILE DURKHEIM (1858-1917)

• The most prominent sociologist of France in 19th century.

• Interested in the social factors that establishes society by holding people together
• Social order
• How society evolves and functions?
• How can a large number of individuals make up a society?
• How can these individuals achieve ‘consensus’ which is basic condition of social existence?
• Why we follow society’s constraints?

• The Division of Labour in Society (1893)-social values as reflection of social

solidarity
• Social solidarity
• Whereas Marx had an eye for conflict and disruption, Durkheim asks us to think of social solidarity and
stability as something special to be explained, not as a default or taken-for-granted experience.
Theory of Social solidarity and
Forms of Law
• Mechanical solidarity
• Traditional society
• Homogeneity,
• Similarity,
• Collective conscience-sacred values
• Social control-religion
• Organic solidarity
• Modern society
• Heterogeneity,
• specialization-interdependence,
• Individual morality
• Social control-written law

• Form of law • Form of law

• Repressive law • Restitutive law
• Religious laws • Restoration
• Penal law-severe punishment • The system of contract law-rules and
laws to regulate individual interactions,
• Crime against collective conscience
system maintenance
• Suicide-taking one’s own life

• According to the WHO, approximately 800,000 people die due to suicide

every year. That is one death every 40 seconds.

• It is expected that by the year 2020, one suicide will occur every 20
seconds. Of these suicides, more than 50 per cent are said to be caused
by depression.
 Theory of suicide

• “Suicide” 1987-Durkheim defined suicide as

• “every case of death resulting directly or indirectly from a positive or negative death
performed by the victim himself and which strives to produce this result”.
• Hence suicide is a conscious act and person committing suicide is fully aware of its consequences.

• Durkheim concludes that “suicide is an individual phenomenon whose causes are

essentially social.”

• Durkheim used statistical data to establish his idea that suicide is a social fact
and social circumstances cause suicide.
• Statistical data- France, Denmark, England, Austria
• Group-Family, Religion and Political
• Basis
• Social Integration
• Social Regulation
• Types of suicides

• Social integration
• Egoistic Suicide: the lack of the integration of the individual into his social group.
• Example- Suicide by actors, suicide by lonely person, sometimes prisoners

• Altruistic Suicide: the over-integration of the individual into his social group
• Obligatory-sati pratha
• Optional- Soldiers’ dying for the country,
• Acute- ‘joy of sacrifice’, religious hysteria, Terrorist suicide bombers,

• Social Regulation
• Anomic Suicide: the state of normlessness in society
• Examples- farmers’ suicide, suicide due to economic losses, market crash, sudden prosperity

• Fatalistic suicide: the state of over burdened with various norms. “Suicide from excessive
regulation."
• Example- slave’s suicide, suicide within prison
• hyperregulation is associated with higher suicide rates in Iran, at least for women (University of Mazandaran,
Iran)
Durkheim and Social Justice
• Social Justice- needed for social solidarity
• Social Justice-Based on Morality
• A) Laws/rules of society b) Social ideals----justice for an individual

• Spontaneous division of labor- based on natural capabilities of individual

• Injustice- spontaneous division of labor hampered
• Role of caste/class
• How to attain social justice within modern society
• Moral Individualism –product of historical evolution hence just
• Removal of inequality
• Reformation in misallocation of social roles- equal opportunity for all
• Equivalence in the exchange of goods and services- the contracts are just
• Introduction of structurally integrated and normatively just social order- law/rules as motivation for social justice
• Role of state- to address the injustices in society
• Expansion of human rights by legislations
• Protection of people from oppressive influences of social spheres like economy
• protecting equitable social relations through regulation
• Moral individualism and Individual freedom- to reduce natural inequalities through socially
produced equalities
 Karl Marx (1818-1883)
• a German philosopher, economist, historian, political theorist, sociologist, journalist and
revolutionary socialist
• Marx has helped through his ideas in understanding the nature of society

• Major Contributions

• Conflict theory
• Marx writes in 1848 that all history is a history of classes and class struggles.

• Materialistic Interpretation of History

• Matter is primary and mind is secondary
• Economic factors as the base structure and others as superstructure

• Classless Society
• From each according to abilities- To each according to needs
• “Withering away of State”
• Theory of Alienation
• (“The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts”, 1844)
• what is alienation?
• is a theoretical concept developed by Karl Marx to explain working condition in capitalism
• Isolation- Strain between relationships that erode a worker’s “species-being” as well as
his human nature.
• (a) relationship between employee themselves, and (b) vertical relation between the
employee and the employer, comes to a saturation point
• Causes
• Over-specialisation: A mechanical order of production
• Division of labour
• Objectification of his own creation
• Surplus value
• The management pattern of capitalist society

• Charlie Chaplin’s masterpiece Modern Times (1936)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfGs2Y5WJ14
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vRe56EwFf4
• Types of alienation

Alienation of individual
• From the product
• From the process
• From others-community
• From self
• Are Lawyers Alienated Workers?
• Author: Daniel Newman, (Lecturer in Law, Cardiff Law School)

• Marx' theory of alienation to the work of criminal legal aid lawyers

• lawyers failing in their role of providing access to justice, offering the interpretation that the structural
impacts that impinge on lawyers may have turned them into alienated workers.
• Alienation from product and process
• Layers are not fighting for client but just fulfilling the formality of the system (the pushing of clients towards quick resolution
by guilty pleas)
• The lawyers in this study had become detached from the product of their labour and possessed little autonomy over the
direction of a case nor, crucially, did they display the ability to uphold defendants' right to a fair trial. It was agents of the
state that held authority; the police and prosecution working within the courts all under the auspices of the Criminal
Procedure Rules enacted by the government.
• Firms have moved from client-centred practice and turn towards approach putting speed and efficiency above all other
considerations
• Alienation from self
• Not able to contribute in delivering justice, low social respect, low wages
• Alienation from other workers
• The lawyers had lost touch with the social aspect of their role: with the commodification of the legal practice to simply
processing the guilty, the sense in which the criminal defense lawyer can help better society and stand up for the commons
of justice has been waylaid.
• Example of Boy charged with breaching the supervision order he was given for a non-dwelling burglary- “I had seen a boy
passed around between lawyers with little to no regard for how he was feeling. It would have felt galling to see any client
treated with such disdain but this was occurring to such a youngster, especially one I felt to be young for his age and who had
so little experience of the justice system”.
• What this meant was that the lawyers took the humanity out of their clients, thus showing the lawyers' alienation from the fellow people they
serve.
• Solutions for the four types of alienation

• Alienation from the work produced will be aided by improving legal aid meaning to
lawyers do not feel pressured to process a quick mass of cases through and, as such, feel
confident enough to take control back over their own practice from the police and
prosecution who are currently allowed a great deal of free reign in case construction.

• Reform of the system- the Criminal Procedure Rules. Better legal aid provision meaning
lawyers are able to take more time over cases and thus utilize the full range of their skills
while pursuing all possible directions in a case thereon challenging the present presumption
for an early guilty plea that suits lawyers' profitability concerns.

• Alienation from the species being can be lessened with improved legal aid, remuneration
paying lawyers an appropriate wage for a high status, high stakes profession thus reiterating
to the lawyers the significance of their practice.

• Alienation from other workers can be addressed through legal aid funding reducing the
three previous forms of alienation thus reducing the pressure lawyers gave into to treat
clients as less than human and, as a result, encouraging lawyers to recover the humanity
and some common cause with clients. Improved ethical training, stimulating the moral
rejuvenation of these lawyers by bringing them into greater and more regular contact with
humanistic ethical issues.
 Max Weber (1864-1920)
• German sociologist

• Verstehen
• Social action
• Relationship between religion and economy (The Protestant Ethic and the
Spirit of Capitalism)
• Theory of Power and Authority

• Concept of Power In ordinary usage, power means strength or capacity to control. Sociologists
describe it as the ability of an individual or group to fulfil its desires and implement its decisions
and ideas.

• Concept of Authority: it is legitimate power

• Weber uses the German word “Herrschaft” to refer to the concept of authority. Herrschaft is a
situation in which a ‘Herr’ or master dominates or commands others.

• Elements of Authority
• a. An individual ruler/master or a group of ruler/masters.
• b. An individual/group that is ruled.
• c. The will of the ruler to influence the conduct of the ruled which may be expressed through
commands.
• d. Evidence of the influence of the rulers in terms of the compliance or obedience showed by the
ruled.
• e. Direct or indirect evidence which shows that the ruled have internalised and accepted the fact
that the ruler’s commands must be obeyed.
• Types of authority:
• Three systems of legitimation, each with its corresponding norms, which
justify the power to command.

• Traditional Authority-legitimacy is based on tradition and custom, e.g. King

• Charismatic Authority-authority is emanates from the characteristics of the

individual, e.g. Mahatma Gandhi

• Rational Legal Authority-It is a system of domination characterized by legal

authority where legitimacy rests on ‘rational grounds’ and on the belief in
the inherent ‘legality of enacted rules’. Modern democracies are examples
• Max weber and Law
• (Max weber on Law and the rise of Capitalism’ by David M. True)
• Distinct system of law in western societies led to emergence of capitalism
• Law
• Organized coercion (use of power)
• Legitimacy- formal mechanism (authority)
• Rationality- general, universal, consciously constructed, autonomous and organized legal system, and all
human actions ordered by law

• Weber's broad concept of "law"

• a system of standards, maxims, principles, or rules of conduct, to some degree accepted as obligatory by the
persons to whom it is addressed, and backed by a specialized enforcement agency employing coercive
sanctions. To the extent that sanctions are applied in accord with a system of rules, law is said to be
"rational."
• Legitimate order
• "Law" is distinguished from other forms of normative orders on the grounds that it additionally involves
specialized agencies enforcing norms through coercive sanctions.
• He holds that rules without organized coercive machinery are not law
• Role of law-to develop a system of universally applicable rules
• Law within three types of authority
• Modern law-legitimate domination
• Modern Law- legitimate domination

• (1) a system of general rules-There are established norms of general

application;
• (2) a belief that the body of law is a consistent system of abstract rules,
and that administration of law consists in the application of these rules to
particular cases and is limited to these rules;
• (3) the "superior" is required to act in order to established rules
• (4) obedience is to the law as such and not to some other form of social
ordering; and
• (5) bureaucracy-obedience is owed only within rationally organized rules
and system
• (6)Law must autonomous and supreme
• Critique of Weber

• Too much emphasis on rationality-he excludes much action as

irrational
• individual action and group actions
• Conflict-disagreements and misunderstandings
• individual action unable to predict unintended consequences
• Outcomes of social action
 Theoretical views on relationship between culture and law

• Aristotle says that Law determines all its strength from custom.

• Durkheim says law expresses social solidarity in society. It is collective

conscience that reflects through the law of the society.

• Karl Marx- laws are the reflection of dominant group’s ideology hence
oppressive in nature. Often exploit the dominated class in society.

• Max weber- laws are reflection of common social will, legitimate power given
by society to rational agency. Laws are general rationalization of society.