A Project on

EMILE DURKHEIM’S THEORY OF

SUICIDE

Submitted to Dr. Uttam Kumar Panda

(Faculty of Sociology)

Submitted by Anant Ekka

Roll No. 26
Semester-II
B.A. LL.B. (Hons.)

HIDAYATULLAH NATIONAL LAW

UNIVERSITY, RAIPUR (C.G.)
 Table of Contents
Acknowledgements...............................................................................................................3

Introduction...........................................................................................................................4

Objective...............................................................................................................................5

Research methodology.........................................................................................................5

 To study the biographical sketch of Emile Durkheim................................................6

 To study the Durkheim’s Theory and Typology of suicide........................................7
 To study the causes of suicide according to Durkheim..............................................8
 To study the Durkheim’s views of explaining the concept of suicide.........................9
 To study the Durkheim’s Types of suicide...............................................................9
 To examine criticism of the theory.........................................................................13

Conclusion.............................................................................................................................14

Reference................................................................................................................................15

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 Acknowledgements
In preparing this project I took help from many people but it is very difficult to list
every name. First and foremost I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to Dr. Uttam
Kumar Panda for putting his trust on me, by giving me such a topic and for him unstinted
support by helping me in all possible ways. I hope that I have not disappointed him and have
done justice to it.

I also want to express my gratitude to the staff and administration of HNLU and to the
library and IT Lab that was a source of great help for the completion of this project. I would
also like to thank all my seniors who always guided me without their help, it would have been
impossible for me to complete this project.

Anant Ekka

Roll no. 26

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INTRODUCTION:-
David Emile Durkheim (April 15, 1858 – November 15, 1917) was a French sociologist. He
formally established the academic discipline and, with Karl Marx and Max Weber, is
commonly cited as the principal architect of modern social science and father of sociology.

Much of Durkheim's work was concerned with how societies could maintain their integrity
and coherence in modernity; an era in which traditional social and religious ties are no longer
assumed, and in which new social institutions have come into being. His first major
sociological work was The Division of Labour in Society (1893). In 1895, he published
his Rules of the Sociological Method and set up the first European department of sociology,
becoming France's first professor of sociology. Durkheim's seminal
monograph, Suicide (1897), a study of suicide rates amongst Catholic and Protestant
populations, pioneered modern social research and served to distinguish social science
from psychology and political philosophy. The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912)
presented a theory of religion, comparing the social and cultural lives of aboriginal and
modern societies.

Durkheim was also deeply preoccupied with the acceptance of sociology as a

legitimate science. He refined the positivism originally set forth by Auguste Comte,
promoting what could be considered as a form of epistemological realism, as well as the use
of the hypothetico-deductive model in social science. For him, sociology was the science
of institutions, its aim being to discover structural social facts. Durkheim was a major
proponent of structural functionalism, a foundational perspective in both sociology
and anthropology. In his view, social science should be purely holistic; that is, sociology
should study phenomena attributed to society at large, rather than being limited to the specific
actions of individuals.

He remained a dominant force in French intellectual life until his death in 1917, presenting
numerous lectures and published works on a variety of topics, including the sociology of
knowledge, morality, social stratification, religion, law, education, and deviance.
Durkheimian terms such as "collective consciousness" have since entered the popular
lexicon.

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OBJECTIVE:-

 To study the biographical sketch of Emile Durkheim.

 To study the Durkheim’s Theory and Typology of suicide.
 To study the causes of suicide according to Durkheim.
 To study the Durkheim’s views of explaining the concept of suicide
 To study the Durkheim’s Types of suicide.
 To examine criticism of the theory

Research Methodology:-

Data type: -This project based on ‘Emile Durkheim’s theory of suicide’. This research is
descriptive and analytical in nature. Secondary sources have been largely used to gather
information and data about topic. Other references as guided by Faculty have been primarily
helpful in giving this project a firm structure. Help has also been taken from web sites,
reference books etc.

 Biographical Sketch of Emile Durkheim

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 Emile Durkheim, one of the important pioneers in the field of sociology, was born in
1858 at Epinal in France. He was the most prominent French sociologist of the 19 th
century. He was born in a Jewish family at Epinal in the eastern French province of
Lorraine on 15th April, 1858. He studied Hebrew Language, the Old Testament, and the
Talmud at early age. He was an erudite scholar, a deep thinker, a progressive educationist,
an effective writer and a strict disciplinarian. In spite of this background he remained an
agnostic throughout his life. He had a bright student career in the college at Epinal and
won several prizes. He was not happy with the conventional subjects taught at the school
and college level. He longed for schooling in scientific methods and in the moral
principles needed to contribute to the moral guidance of society. Although he was
interested in scientific sociology there was not one at that time. He graduated from the
famous college of Paris ‘Ecole Normale’. Between 1882 and 1887 he taught philosophy
in a number of provincial schools in Paris and surrounding area. Durkheim’s love for
education took him to Germany where he was exposed to the scientific psychology being
pioneered by Wilhelm Wundt. After his return from Germany he went on publishing
several articles based on his experience there. These publications earned him a prominent
place in the department of philosophy at University of Bordeaux in 1887. He was later
asked to head the newly created department of ‘Social Science’. Thereafter Durkheim and
his writings became famous.

Durkheim had evinced in socialism. The moral degeneration of the French society brought
him great disappointment. In this state of disappointment he died in his 59th year in 1917. His
influence on sociology is a lasting one. The journal which he started ‘Anne Sociologique’ [in
1896] still continues to serve, as one of the leading journals of sociological thought. Though
Durkheim is no more, functionalism, sociology of education, sociology of law, sociology of
religion etc. started by him, are still alive.

 Durkheim’s Theory and Typology of suicide

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 Durkheim began working on the problem of Suicide in 1888 while he was at Bordeaux.
His interest in the problem was aroused while he was working on an article related to
suicide and the birth rate. Suicide is an indication of disorganisation of both individual
and society. Increasing number of suicide clearly indicates something wrong somewhere
in the social system of the concerned society. Durkheim has studied this problem at some
length. In suicide, he demonstrated that social facts, in particular social currents, are
external to, and coercive of, the individual. Durkheim’s attempt to formulate a social
theory of suicide led him look for the cause of suicide within the framework of society
rather than in the psychological states of individuals. Durkheim’s study of suicide begins
with a definition of the phenomenon. He then proceeds to refute the earlier interpretations
of suicide. Finally, he develops a general theory of the phenomenon.
i. Definition of suicide

Durkheim defines suicide as follows:

The term suicide is applied to all cases of death resulting directly or indirectly from a positive
or negative act of the victim himself, which he knows will produce this result.

According to Durkheim, suicide refers to ‘every case of death resulting directly or

indirectly from a positive or negative death performed by the victim himself and which
strives to phenomenon.’ He puts this clearly when he stated that, ‘the causes of death are
outside rather than within us, and are effective only if we venture into their sphere of
activity’. The suicide act, ‘which at first seems to express only the personal temperament
of the individual, is really the supplement and prolongation of a social condition which
they express externally.’ It is clear from the definition of Durkheim that suicide is a
conscious act and the person concerned is fully aware of its consequences. The person
who shoots himself to death, or drinks severe poison, jumps down from the 10 th storey of
a building, for example, is fully aware of the consequences of such an act.
ii. Purpose behind this study

Durkheim used a number of statistical records to establish his fundamental idea that suicide is
also a social fact and social order and disorder are at the very root of suicide. He made use of
statistical analysis for two primary reasons. These are :{i} To refute theories of suicide based
on psychology, biology, genetics, climate, and geographic factors. {ii}To support with
empirical evidence of his own sociological explanation of suicide.

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 .

 Causes of suicide according to Durkheim

Durkheim displays an Extreme Form of Sociological Realism- Durkheim is of the firm
belief that suicide is not an individual act or a private and personal action. It is caused by
some power which is over and above the individual of ‘super-individual’. It is not
personal situation but a manifestation of a social condition. He speaks of suicide currents
as collective tendencies that dominate some vulnerable persons. The act of suicide is
nothing but the manifestation of these currents. Durkheim has selected the instance or
event of suicide to demonstrate the function of sociological theory.

Durkheim chooses Statistical Method to know the cause of suicide-

Statistics on suicide were readily available, and Durkheim chooses to analyze them.
Durkheim was interested in explaining differences in suicide rates, that is, he was interested
in why one group had a higher rate of suicide than another. For the analysis of suicide rates,
Durkheim gave the concept of social suicide rate. The ‘social suicide rate’ is a term used by
Durkheim to refer to the number of suicide deaths in a given society and the extent to which
the ‘rates’ themselves could be looked upon as establishing a pattern of suicide for a given
society. Durkheim arrived at the concept of the social suicide rate by a careful examination of
mortality data which had been obtained from public records of societies such as France,
Prussia, England, Denmark and Austria. These records contained information about cause of
death, age, marital background, religion and the total number of deaths by suicide of the
country from which they were gathered.

Durkheim Rejects Extra – Social factors as the causes of suicide-

Durkheim repudiated most of the accepted theories of suicide. Like

 His monographic study demonstrated that heredity, for example, is not a sufficient
explanation of suicide.
 Climatic and geographic factors are equally insufficient as explanatory factors.
 Likewise, waves of imitation are inadequate explanations.
 He also established the fact that suicide is not necessarily caused by the psychological
factors.
Durkheim accepts Social Forces are the Real Causes of Suicide-

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 Suicide are a highly individual act. In his attempts to substantiate this fact he came to know
that the incidence of suicide varied from one social group or set up to another. Protestants
were more likely to commit suicide than Catholics; people in large cities were more likely to
commit suicide than people living in families. Durkheim isolated one independent variable
that lay behind these differences: the extent to which the individual was integrated into a
social bond with others. People with fragile or weaker ties to their community are more likely
to take their own lives than people who have stronger ties.

 Durkheim Views of explaining the concept of Suicide

Durkheim explores the differing suicide rates among Protestants and Catholics, arguing that
stronger social control among Catholics results in lower suicide rates. According to
Durkheim, Catholic society has normal levels of integration while Protestant society has low
levels. There are at least two problems with this interpretation. First, Durkheim took most of
his data from earlier researchers, notably Adolph Wagner and Henry Morselli, who were
much more careful in generalizing from their own data. Second, later researchers found that
the Protestant-Catholic differences in suicide seemed to be limited to German-speaking
Europe and thus may always have been the spurious reflection of other factors. Despite its
limitations, Durkheim's work on suicide has influenced proponents of control theory, and is
often mentioned as a classic sociological study.

Durkheim established that:

 Suicide rates are higher in men than women (although married women who remained
childless for a number of years ended up with a high suicide rate)
 Suicide rates are higher for those who are single than those who are married
 Suicide rates are higher for people without children than people with children
 Suicide rates are higher among Protestants than Catholics and Jews
 Suicide rates are higher among soldiers than civilians
 Suicide rates are higher in times of peace than in times of war (the suicide rate in
France fell after of, for example. War also reduced the suicide rate, after between
Austria and Italy; the suicide rate fell by 14% in both countries.)

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  Suicide rates are higher in Scandinavian countries
 the higher the education level, the more likely it was that an individual would commit
suicide, however Durkheim established that there is more correlation between an
individual's religion and suicide rate than an individual's education level; Jewish
people were generally highly educated but had a low suicide rate.

 Types of Suicide

He also distinguished between four subtypes of suicide. These four types of suicide are based
on the degrees of imbalance of two social forces: social integration and social regulation.
Integration refers to the degree to which collective sentiments are shared or the strength of
the social bonds between the individual and society. Here, egoistic and altruistic suicide from
opposite poles of social integration. In the second part of theory, social regulation, in the
contrast to integration, refers to the restraints imposed by society on individual needs and
wants. Here, anomic and fatalistic suicides form opposite poles of social regulation.
Durkheim noted the effects of various crises on social aggregates – war, for example, leading
to an increase in altruism, economic boom or disaster contributing to anomie.

1. Egoistic suicide: - The term ‘egoism’ originates from the 19th century and was widely
used by Durkheim and others at the time to indicate the breakdown of social ties. Egoism
can be described as the process by which individuals death themselves from society by
turning their activity inward and by retreating into themselves. Egoism is characterised by
excessive self-reflection on personal matters and a withdrawn from the outside world. It
reflects a prolonged sense of not belonging, of not being integrated in a community, an
experience, of not having a tether, an absence that can give rise to meaninglessness,
apathy, melancholy, and depression1. It is the result of a weakening of the bonds that
normally integrate individuals into the collectively: in other words a breakdown or
decrease of social integration2. Durkheim refers to this type of suicide as the result of
"excessive individuation", meaning that the individual becomes increasingly detached

1
Stark, Rodney and William Sims Bainbridge. 1996. Religion, Deviance and Social Control. Routledge,
Google Print p. 32

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 from other members of his community. Those individuals who were not sufficiently
bound to social groups (and therefore well-defined values, traditions, norms, and goals)
were left with little social support or guidance, and therefore tended to commit suicide on
an increased basis3. An example Durkheim discovered was that of unmarried people,
particularly males, who, with less to bind and connect them to stable social norms and
goals, committed suicide at higher rates than married people4.

Hence, High rates of egoistic suicide are likely to be found in those societies, collectivities, or
groups in which the individual is not well integrated into the larger social unit. Societies with
a strong collective conscience and the protective, enveloping social currents that flow from it
are likely to prevent- the widespread occurrence of egoistic suicide. In fact, strongly
integrated families, religious groups and politics act as agent of a strong collective conscience
and discourage suicide.

For example, regardless of race and nationality, Catholics show far less suicides than
Protestants. Durkheim stated that ‘the superiority of Pretestantism with respect to suicide
results from its being a less strongly integrated church than the Catholic Church.’

Family, like religious group, is second powerful counter agent against suicide. Non-marriage
increases the tendency to suicide, while marriage reduces the danger by half. Family life
reduces egoism by ensuring that greater concentrations of commitment are focused within the
family rather than on individual and this, in this, acts to suppress the tendency to withdraw.

Political or national group is the 3rd powerful counter agent against suicide. This is more
obscure category than either religion or the family and is less developed by Durkheim than
the other forms of attachment. Political society, according to Durkheim, refers to the type of
social bonds which occur between the individual and society at large and encompasses the
type of links which develop between individuals and their national group. On the basis of
collected facts, Durkheim outlined that instead of breaking social ties, severe social
disruption brought about by a political crisis increases the intensity of ‘collective sentiments

2
Pope, Whitney, and Nick Danigelis. 1981. "Sociology's One Law," Social Forces 60:496-514.

3
Harriford, Diane, and Thomson "When the Center is on Fire" pg. 165

4
Thompson, Kenneth. 1982. Emile Durkheim. London: Tavistock Publications, pp. 109-111

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 and stimulates patriotism’. This increases social integration between the individual and the
group and ‘causes a stronger integration of society’.

2. Altruistic suicide : - It is characterized by a sense of being overwhelmed by a group's goals

and beliefs. 5 This kind of suicide results from the over-integration of the individual into his
social group. Durkheim first made his observations about altruistic suicide by looking at
tribal societies. He observed that social customs in these societies played a high degree of
social honour on individuals who take their own lives in the name of social purposes greater
than themselves. It occurs in societies with high integration, where individual needs are seen
as less important than the society's needs as a whole. They thus occur on the opposite
integration scale as egoistic suicide. As individual interest would not be considered
important, Durkheim stated that in an altruistic society there would be little reason for people
to commit suicide. He stated one exception, namely when the individual is expected to kill
themselves on behalf of society – a primary example being the soldier in military service . In
this category, Durkheim lists three specific types of suicides:
a) The suicide of older men threatened with severe illness;
b) The suicide of women on the death bed of their husbands;
c) The suicide of followers on the death of their chiefs.

Under these circumstances, people take their own lives not because they take the personal
right to do, but because a social duty is imposed upon them by society. Some of examples of
altruistic suicide are women throwing themselves at the funeral pyre of their husbands
(known as sati in India); Danish warriors killing themselves in old age; the Goths jumping to
their death from high pinnacles to escape the ignominy of natural death; suicide of follower
and servants on the death of their chiefs; Japanese Harakiri, self-immolation by Buddhist
monks, self- homicide by army suicide squads and self-destruction in Nirvana under
Brahminic are other variants of altruistic suicide.

Durkheim maintained that altruistic suicide takes several different forms:

£ Obligatory altruistic suicide:- In this category, society imposes an explicit on individuals to

take their own life, but this duty may lack specific coercive pressure from the community.

5
Harriford, Diane, and Thomson "When the Center is on Fire" pg.166

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£ Optional altruistic suicide :- In this category, the demand placed on the individual by the
community is less explicitly clarified or ‘less expressly required’ than in circumstances where
suicide is strictly obligatory.
£ Acute altruistic suicide :- In this category, acute altruistic suicide, the individual renounces
life for the acute felt ‘joy of sacrifice’.

3. Anomic suicide:- It reflects an individual's moral confusion and lack of social direction,
which is related to dramatic social and economic upheaval. 6It is the product of moral
deregulation and a lack of definition of legitimate aspirations through a restraining social
ethic, which could impose meaning and order on the individual conscience. This is
symptomatic of a failure of economic development and division of labour to produce
Durkheim's organic solidarity. People do not know where they fit in within their societies.
Durkheim explains that this is a state of moral disorder where man does not know the
limits on his desires, and is constantly in a state of disappointment. This can occur when
man goes through extreme changes in wealth; while this includes economic ruin, it can
also include windfall gains - in both cases, previous expectations from life are brushed
aside and new expectations are needed before he can judge his new situation in relation to
the new limits.
4. Fatalistic suicide:-It is the opposite of anomic suicide, when a person is excessively
regulated, when their futures are pitilessly blocked and passions violently choked by
oppressive discipline7. It occurs in overly oppressive societies, causing people to prefer to
die than to carry on living within their society. This is an extremely rare reason for people
to take their own lives, but a good example would be within a prison; people prefer to die
than live in a prison with constant abuse and excessive regulation that prohibits them
from pursuing their desires.

6
Harriford, Diane, and Thomson "When the Center is on Fire" pg.166
7
Harriford, Diane, and Thomson "When the Center is on Fire" pg.166

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  Criticism
Durkheim's study of suicide has been criticized as an example of the logical error termed the
ecological fallacy. Durkheim has given importance only to social factors in suicide. In doing
so, he has neglected the role of other factors, especially the psychological. Hence this is a
one-sided view. The theory is based upon a very small sample of data concerning suicide. As
criminologists have pointed out, economic, psychological and even religious factors may lead
to suicide. But Durkheim did not give any importance to these factors. Indeed, Durkheim's
conclusions about individual behaviour (e.g. suicide) are based on aggregate statistics (the
suicide rate among Protestants and Catholics). This type of inference, explaining micro
events in terms of macro properties, is often misleading, as is shown by examples of
Simpson's paradox.

However, diverging views have contested whether Durkheim's work really contained an
ecological fallacy. Van Poppel and Day (1996) have advanced that difference in suicide rates
between Catholics and Protestants were explicable entirely in terms of how deaths were
categorized between the two social groups. For instance, while "sudden deaths" or "deaths
from ill-defined or unspecified cause" would often be recorded as suicides among Protestants,
this would not be the case for Catholics. Hence Durkheim would have committed an
empirical rather than logical error. Some, such as Inkeles (1959), Johnson (1965) and Gibbs
(1968), have claimed that Durkheim's only intent was to explain suicide sociologically within
a holistic perspective, emphasizing that "he intended his theory to explain variation among
social environments in the incidence of suicide, not the suicides of particular individuals."

More recent authors such as Berk (2006) have also questioned the micro-macro relations
underlying Durkheim's work. For instance, Berk notices that Durkheim speaks of a
"collective current" that reflects the collective inclination flowing down the channels of social
organization. The intensity of the current determines the volume of suicides Introducing
psychological [i.e. individual] variables such as depression, [which could be seen as] an
independent [non-social] cause of suicide, overlooks Durkheim's conception that these
variables are the ones most likely to be effected by the larger social forces and without these
forces suicide may not occur within such individuals.

Jennifer M. Lehmann critiques Durkheim's major works such as Suicide from a feminist,
Structuralist Marxist, multiculturalist perspective, and a Deconstructionist method, in

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Deconstructing Durkheim (Routledge 1993); Durkheim and Women (University of Nebraska
Press 1994); and chapters and articles in Sociological Theory (1990); Current Perspectives in
Sociological Theory (1991); American Sociological Review (1995); and American Journal of
Sociological Theory (1995).

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 Conclusion

In simple words, he is recognised as one of the greatest social thinker and academic
sociologists of France who has developed sociological concepts, methodology, theories
and so on.
It is clear from the definition of Durkheim that suicide is a conscious act and the person
concerned is fully aware of its consequences. Durkheim is of the firm belief that suicide is
not an individual act or a private and personal action. It is caused by some power.
Durkheim put forward three concepts making up a social theory of suicide: egoistic,
altruistic and anomie. The first two suicides, egoistic and altruistic, explain suicide by
looking at the framework of social attachment to society which Durkheim called social
integration. The third concept, anomic suicide, on the other hand, belongs to framework
which explains suicide by looking at the changes in the regulatory mechanism of society.
Egoistic suicide results from the lack of integration of the individual into his social group.
The first type of suicide occurs due to over develop of individualism, while second is due
to a lack of development at the level of individual. Atomic suicide, in contrast, occurs
because of the reduction of the regulatory mechanism of society. In fact, fatalistic suicide
has little relevance in the real world. Durkheim displayed an extreme form of sociological
realism.
A successful attempt is made in this theory to establish logically the link between social
solidarity, social control and suicide. Durkheim has thrown light on the various faces of
suicide.

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Reference
Bibliography

 Rao, C. N. Shankar (2006). Sociology: Principles of Sociology with an Introduction to

Social Thought. S. Chand & Company Ltd. New Delhi.
 Choudhary, Sujit Kumar (2006). Thinkers and Theories in Sociology: From Comte to
Giddens. Gagandeep Publications, New Delhi.

Webliography

 www.en.wikipedia.org

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