Is sociology a moral science?

This article uses the work of David Hume, J. S. Mill and Émile Durkheim to trace the ambiguous and difficult relations between the concepts of the moral and the social within the development of Sociology. The works of Hume and Mill will be examined in terms of their respective attempts to develop a Moral Science, and the limitations and legacy of their respective approaches will be analyzed. The article will then demonstrate how Durkheim signals a shift away from a notion of the “moral sciences” based on an analysis of human nature to the invocation of the realm of the social which operates at the level of the group or collective. The moral becomes a matter of what is considered “obligatory” within a society. The article suggests that the difference between the moral [la morale] and morality [moralité] has been lost in English translations of Durkheim’s texts and that a recognition of how he deployed this distinction throughout his work sheds new light on his theoretical position. By asking whether Sociology is a Moral Science, it is possible to shed new light both on the specific history and development of Sociology, and the article points to the importance for Sociology and sociologists of renewing their engagement with matters of the moral. The article will suggest that an ongoing consideration of the relation between systematic knowledge and what ought to be done is core to the project of what Sociology is, or could be. It is in this sense that Sociology is (or should be) a moral science.