Society designates a set of individuals linked together by a culture and a history. It is therefore abusive to speak of animal societies which are perpetuated only by heredity - not by inheritance - but relevant to speak of an industrial society. The notion of society first poses an anthropological problem: is man naturally sociable as, for example, Aristotle maintains? To know how and why men entered society, since Hobbes, we oppose a state of nature (fictitious) and a state of society (which generally describes present reality). The notion of society then poses a sociological problem: to what extent are our individual behaviors socially determined? Does society allow the individual to fulfill himself? Does she prevent it? Finally, the notion leads to a political problem:
Examples
The tree and the forest
How does it come about that in the forest trees grow tall and straight while isolated, they throw their branches in disorder and do not rise much? Because in the forest, they seek light, fight not to die of suffocation under the shade of other trees. Kant uses this image to show that outside of society no progress is possible. It is "the unsociable sociability of men", their inclination to live in society while reluctant to it, which, according to "a hidden plan of nature", leads the species to progress.
The art of blowing your nose
What should I do ? This question introduces to morality and law. Duty refers to the obligation to do or not to do. It refers to the Good (moral) or to the Law (right), supposes a rule and addresses the freedom of the individual - without which duty would merge with necessity, from which one cannot escape. Morality deals with the internal constraints of the person; it leaves to the law the study of external obligations, such as civic duties. The ethics (or morality) which maintains that there are unconditional obligations is called "deontological" (from the Greek deonta which means "the duties"). It is opposed to the "consequentialist" ethics which judges that an action is moral only if its effects on others are good.
Examples
The ten Commandments
The philosopher and theologian Martin Buber interprets the episode where God gives Moses the Decalogue as a necessary step on the path which leads the Jewish people from the liberation of the land of Egypt to the Promised Land. The Ten Commandments are all rules for the Hebrews to structure their freedom and acquire their identity. Thus, the fifth commandment which obliges to be unemployed on the seventh day and to honor one's parents gives the community its cohesion according to the time, while the prohibition to covet the good of others (tenth Law) organizes it according to the space. . Respecting duty is then - finally - to be ...