Some phenomena demonstrating that moral good and bad can form productive coalitions on a moral middle ground are presented in this chapter: healthy selfishness, Machiavellianism, the case of Oskar Schindler, black humor, grey hat hackers, transgressive art, the combination of the pure and impure in the tradition of Émile Durkheim, and the repositioning of the “wrong” other-in-the-self. Three practical implications are outlined: a guideline to evaluating transgressive art beyond one’s first emotional response and the existence of grey areas in the abortion discussion and in the #MeToo debate.

Among the social sciences, the discipline of anthropology displays perhaps the greatest affinity for the methods and assumptions of historical enquiry. Anthropology’s turn to history began as early as the 1950s, but the relationship between the two fields was cemented a generation later. Yet because it is now disciplinary folklore, the precise character of anthropology’s turn to history is less well understood than it should be. In this chapter, I seek to explain why the methods of historical enquiry became so attractive to a generation of anthropologists. I make two major claims: first, that it was the problem of the origins and persistence of institutions that drew social and cultural anthropologists toward history; second, that this concern with institutional reproduction was part of anthropology’s long struggle to offer an alternative to a post-Hobbesian state-centred politics. In defending these claims, I examine in particular the writings of Émile Durkheim, Bronislaw Malinowski, and Clifford Geertz.

The chapter criticises the liberalist presuppositions that an individual-centred view on privacy builds upon. It discusses the legal person of the Union as an economic agent.

This chapter examines the concept of solidarity, especially its existence outside the law, as a mechanism of cohesion. Three features are characteristic of this mechanism. First, solidarity mediates between the community and the individual. Second, as a result of solidarity, unity is created. Third, solidarity carries with it positive obligations, requiring individuals to act in support of, and in conformity with the group. Apart from these three general characteristics, solidarity is a multifaceted concept, with differing implications depending on the context in which it features. To understand these implications the chapter distinguishes between three kinds of solidarity: ‘social solidarity’, ‘welfare solidarity’ and ‘oppositional solidarity’. After a short discussion of each, the chapter pays special attention to social solidarity. On the basis of Aristotle’s notion of ‘friendship’, Rousseau’s ‘social contract’, Durkheim’s ‘mechanical’ and ‘organic’ solidarity and Parsons’s understanding of solidarity as a normative obligation, it analyses the concept’s roots and evolution over time.

The chapter presents Bergson as an underacknowledged yet first-rate social theorist, demonstrating that in Two Sources Bergson is in extensive, albeit implicit, dialogue with his two great predecessors in the tradition -Émile Durkheim and Auguste Comte - and that his encounter with them turns on three questions at the heart of sociology as a unique field of inquiry: first, what binds people together in society? second, what is the origin of society? and third, what is the nature of social change? By working through Bergson’s engagement with these key authors and themes, the chapter presents Bergson’s own original theory of society and sociability, which, as with all his work, centers on creativity, but this time in connection with personal and collective transformation.