6 - ‘The Rule-of-Law’: A Case Study

Summary

Before we leave the realms of what Durkheim describes as the general characteristics of the collective consciousness of society – the macro-sociological features we have considered above – and go on to look in greater detail at those other very strong, but smaller-scale or ‘individual’ characteristics which might serve this purpose, there is one other very strong macro-sociological candidate that I want to consider for inclusion under the heading of ‘rules forbidding acts contrary to the sentiments of the collectivity’ and this is one which, interestingly enough, is in fact entirely missing from Durkheim's discussion of this question in The Division of Labour. I am referring here to what Barbara Hudson (1998), calls the role of the ‘Rule-of-Law’ in society. Departing then for the moment from Durkheim's list of all possible candidates for inclusion in the collective consciousness of society (table v.1 in The Division of Labour), I want to emphasize once again how revealing it is that any discussion of this point is conspicuously lacking from Durkheim's own account of this matter, at least as outlined by him in The Division of Labour, and that the reason for this is almost certainly due to the analytical distinction that Durkheim makes between the disciplinary function in society and the collective consciousness as such. The criminal law is part of the disciplinary function of society and as such, as we have seen, it is not part of Durkheim's concept of the collective consciousness.