Q.Show, with examples, how moral codes are indicators of social solidarity.

Because law is a moral code given observable, written form, the kind of law a society has -- repressive or restitutive -- reveals the kind of solidarity underlying it. …

To see why moral codes indicate the type of social solidarity a society has, start from Durkheim's own claim that moral facts, like any other phenomena, follow rules that can be observed, described and classified -- and law is precisely a moral code given a formal, written, publicly observable expression. This means we do not need to observe an abstract bond like 'solidarity' directly (which is impossible, since it is not a physical thing); we can instead read it off the character of a society's own legal system. Consider mechanical solidarity: in a small, tightly integrated community where cohesion rests on members' shared similarity, a violation of communal norms is experienced as a threat to the community's very integrity -- so its law is repressive, responding to wrongdoing with harsh, retributive punishment aimed at reaffirming the shared moral order. For example, a traditional community that responds to a breach of custom with severe collective sanction is displaying exactly this kind of repressive, mechanical-solidarity-indicating law. Now consider organic solidarity: in a large, heterogeneous, interdependent modern society, law instead tends to be restitutive -- aimed at repairing the specific harm a wrong has caused rather than collectively punishing the wrongdoer. Modern contract law or compensation for a civil wrong is a clear example: rather than treating a breach as an offence against the whole community's shared conscience, it treats the breach as a specific harm between specific, interdependent parties that needs to be corrected. Because the type of legal code a society actually uses -- repressive or restitutive -- can be directly o …