In this paper we intend to demonstrate why Durkheimian theory is still relevant to contemporary debates on morality and on how sociology could deal with it. In a way, it is an effort to establish the basis of what could be a Durkheimian sociology of morality today or, even better, how we can conceive a contemporary sociology of morality with Durkheimian inspiration. For this purpose, we will first reconstruct the ontological elements implied in his view of morality, highlighting a dimension that is precisely the one this theory is blamed for neglecting: a discussion about human nature and the conditions for constituting of the self. In a second movement, we present a few 'operational' considerations on what this Durkheimian sociology of morality could be today, pointing to the level of analysis it can deal with, to what it can aim to explain and - why not? (introducing a Weberian flavour) - understand. The final step leads us to the territory of a normative social theory, consisting in a critical discussion of pathological moralities, from the point of view of the suffering they can bring to the individual, and of the challenges brought by late modernity, characterized by a multiplicity of sacred objects inhabiting the same space.
Sociology of morality; Morality and religion; Sacred; Self