THE NATIONAL LAW INSTITUTE UNIVERSITY BHOPAL

SOCIOLOGY OF LAW
THIRD TRIMESTER
PROJECT
TOPIC- LAW AND MORALITY- PERSPECTIVES OF DURKHEIM, PIAGET AND MEAD

SUBMITTED BY: SUBMITTED TO:

MASSI TOPPO PROF. (DR.) TAPAN R MOHANTY
(2019BALLB29)
ASHHAB KHAN
(2019BALLB56)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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Acknowledgement………………………………………………………………………………...3

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

Statement of Problem.....................................................................................................................5

Method of Study.............................................................................................................................5

Objectives.......................................................................................................................................5

Morality and Durkheim..................................................................................................................6

George H. Mead (1863-1931).......................................................................................................10

Early Life, Education, and Career................................................................................................10

Mead's Theory of the Self.............................................................................................................11

Brief Introduction of Piaget’s Work.............................................................................................13

Kinds of Rule................................................................................................................................14

The interpersonal coordination of values.....................................................................................15

Theory of Moral Evolution...........................................................................................................16

Four Developing Stages................................................................................................................17

Piaget's stages compared with the Emile Durkheim's Solidarity..................................................19

Conclusion....................................................................................................................................20

Bibliography.................................................................................................................................21

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 ACKNOWLEDGMENT

We have taken efforts in this project. However, it would not have been possible without the kind
support and help of many individuals. We would like to extend our sincere thanks to all of them.
We are highly indebted to Prof. (Dr.) Tapan R. Mohanty for his guidance and constant
supervision as well as for providing necessary information regarding the project & also for his
support in completing the project.
We would like to express our gratitude towards our parents & seniors for their kind co-operation
and encouragement which help us in completion of this project.
We would like to express our special gratitude and thanks to the Vice-Chancellor of National
Law Institute University, Bhopal for giving us such ample time and opportunity.
Our cheers and appreciations also go to our colleagues in developing the project and people who
have willingly helped us out with their abilities.

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 INTRODUCTION

The theory of moral development does not easily find a place in the disciplines of psychology
and sociology. But still we find a lot of work closely related to this theme of discussion and these
works readily finds a place in the rule of law. Guiding us through this theme most effectively are
the theories of Emile Durkheim, George H. Mead and Jean Piaget. We will discuss them in detail
in this work but for the time being let us have a brief look at them.
Emile Durkheim

In his famous work titled as the “Division of Labor in Society”, he brought distinction to two
types of social solidarity which are “mechanical" and "organic"; the latter representing a later
stage of development of the former. Mechanical solidarity as conceived by Durkheim is always
founded on fondness and a sense of collective consciousness which can also be referred to as the
sense of common identity. People are made to believe that they have a lot of similarity between
them as a result of which they share common belief and interests. Organic solidarity is the
complete opposite of the former. It focusses on the complex division of labour where each
person is dependent on the other person. Social differentiation, as pitched by organic solidarity,
makes people dependent on groups and groups dependent on people.
Jean Piaget

Jean Piaget, in his famous work titled as “The Moral Judgment of the Child”, focusses on the
study of responses of children to the problems of punishment and fairness. He starts with the
statement that morality of any type has in itself a body of rules and regulations. The very notion
of morality can be found in the way in which he goes on acquiring these rules.
Piaget brought distinction to two types of rules; coercive and rational. The former is based on
respect and sometimes fear of the authority, and obedience to the rules is commanded by
punishment. Thus, the child’s response to such rules do not need any rational motive for they
follow it out of fear of punishment. Rational rules, on the other hand, can be brought and are
brought in a sense of fairness, mutuality, and respect. Morality of coercive rules is a “morality of
constraint” and morality of rational rules is a “morality of cooperation.”

George H. Mead

George H. Mead, the American philosopher, and social psychologist, lends support to this very
theme of law and morality. Though the concept of moral evolution is not expressly provided in
Mead’s writings, its most illustrative form can be found in “Mind, Self, and Society”. Mead
looked for the development of moral values in the transition from a regime of "significant others"
to a consciousness of the "generalized other.” The young child learns the attitudes and
expectations of his parents and of other individuals who dominate his life. These significant
others have a direct, personal impact on the child’s conception of himself and of his world.

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Gradually, however, the child learns a different form of social participation, lie begins to grasp
the meaning of cooperation arid to govern his actions by his understanding of group activity.

STATEMENT OF PROBLEM

Law and morality have been closely related for quite a while now. The contributions of Jean
Piaget, George H. Mead and Emile Durkheim in this realm of law and morality demand
observation and an in-depth analysis.

METHOD OF STUDY

The method of study followed in this work is doctrinal method of study.

OBJECTIVES

The objectives of this work are:

 To study the contributions of Jean Piaget towards law and morality.

 To study the contributions of George H. Mead towards law and morality
 To study the contributions of Emile Durkheim towards law and morality

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 MORALITY AND DURKHEIM

Morality is generally understood as rules of conduct. It guides us to regulate our daily conduct as
per the standards set in the society. It separates what is right from what is wrong; what ought to
be done and what ought not be done. This system of adherence has been there since forever. The
modern way of adherence is abiding by law which is always endorsed by an authority. It is the
law makers which now decide what is right or what is wrong.

H.L.A. Hart in his famous work titled as ‘Social Solidarity and the Enforcement of Morality’ 1
presents us with a simplified account of the views of Emile Durkheim on law and morality. Hart
considered Durkheim and Lord Devlin, an English judge, as the main proponents of his work
christened as “The Disintegration Thesis”. Before dwelling into the understanding of Durkheim
regarding law and morality, let us first go through the concept of morality as conceived by him.

Durkheim could not finish his writings on morality due to his untimely death which occurred in
1917. Resultantly, one can observe the lack of consistency in his work relating to morality.
Nevertheless, he was able to publish his work titled as “Determination of a Moral Fact” 2. After
his death, his study titled as Moral Education was published taking the help of which and the
former Durkheim’s views on morality can be decoded.

Durkheim’s theory is different from that of others in the way that he rejects any attempt of using
logical reasoning to construct the system of ethics. He is of the view that all the moral
phenomena have a social and historical backdrop. He understood morality as being rooted in the
sui generis reality of the society. This cannot be denied or abnegated by any individual. Morality
is nothing but a social fact. Moral rules are created in every society and these may vary
substantially from one society to another. This happens because the needs of different society are
not the same and they need not coincide with each other in order to gain acceptance in one’s own
society. This forms the very basic of physics of morality, or also known as physique des moeurs
as conceived by Durkheim.

1 Published in the year 1967

2 Published in the year 1906

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The reader may at times feel that the Durkheim’s idea of morality is a bit vague and is capable of
various interpretations. But he maintains consistency in his general idea related to morality. He
viewed morality as a system of rules that guide individuals to act in the prescribed way under
different situations. Moral rules have some specific characteristics that make them distinct form
other rules. These have the following characteristics:

 Obligatory nature

 Desirability of morality

As per Durkheim, at the very core of morality lies an authority that gets the rules followed and
makes them binding upon the individuals who are subject to such authority. This authority which
is external to the individual puts upon him an obligation to fulfil. Specially with this element of
morality, Durkheim has acknowledged that he had been influenced by the Kantian notion of
duty.

Durkheim felt that simply the repressive nature of the moral rules does not make them binding.
There is some other feature which is necessary for the existence of morality and the rules it gives.
This feature as per Durkheim is nothing but the desirability of morality. Durkheim by the
desirability of morality means that the people think of the moral rules as obligations imposed
upon them which deserves their respect and devotion. When they work according to the rules,
they feel as if they are moving towards something beneficial to themselves. It is, thus, this selfish
motive of the individuals which make them follow the moral rules as they are.

Durkheim also distinguished between two elements of morality: one is morality of group and the
other is morality of individual. There are rules created by the society which are to be adhered to
by the individuals who are under the authority but the way in these individuals exercise or
express their morality varies from an individual to an individual. It is not possible for an
individual to exactly replicate the moral rules of the society. This means that the individual
always adds something to the moral codes out of his own moral conscience. This allows the
individual to create its own sphere of personal morality or a version of societal morality closer to
his own moral conscience. In this way, it is said that morality has an individual and an extra-
individual element as do the social facts.

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Durkheim also emphasised that an individual need not blindly follow the moral rules. If an
individual finds any reason to act contrary to the moral rules, he may do so for it would help the
society to grow and would be beneficial to the society itself.

Durkheim has also analysed law in his study of moral foundations of the division of labour. In
order to explain how the society transforms from mechanical to the organic, Durkheim asserts
that changes in law are the indicators of the change in the moral foundations of the society. To
dwell deeper into this inter-relation between law and morality, let us first understand the concept
of mechanical and organic solidarity.

In his book “The Division of Labour in Society” 3, Durkheim came up with two types of social
solidarity which are as follows:

 Mechanical Solidarity; and 

Organic Solidarity.

Mechanical solidarity relates the individual to the society directly. The members of the society
do similar work and share similar belief with very little deviance. They are similar to each other
for they feel the same emotions, cherish the same values and hold the same things sacred. The
society is coherent in the way that the individuals are not yet differentiated. The thing that binds
the individual to the society is conceived as collective conscience by Durkheim. The common
conscience has its effect on every individual especially on his mentality and morality. Durkheim
believed that such kind of solidarity exists in the society which are technologically not that
advanced. This means that the society depends mostly on hunting, gathering and other primitive
activities which ultimately leads to shared interests and beliefs. This type of society shows every
little division of labour, or rather very simple division of labour.

Since it is based on similarity, it maintains this phenomenon by strict regulation and repression of
the individual. The law followed in this type of society is repressive law.

Organic solidarity, on the other hand, is the almost opposite of mechanical solidarity. So, most of
the points which are false for mechanical solidarity are true for organic solidarity. Here, society
is more complex and the works of the labourers are more defined and are specific. Each
individual has a distinct work and has a specific task to pursue for most of the time which also
3 "The Division of Labor in Society" (or "De la Division du Travail Social") debuted in 1893

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imparts expertise to the labourers. In this type of solidarity, people are dependent on each other.
It explains the working of the industrial society where the division of labour is way more
complex than that in hunting and gathering society. Organic solidarity explains the force that
keeps the industrial society together. As per this solidarity, each individual in a society is like a
organ in a human body where each organ has its own functions. Just as different body organs
perform different body functions without which the body will not function, similarly different
individuals in the society perform different functions without which the society will not function.
Thus, organic solidarity is an integration which is realised out of the needs of one for someone’s
service.

With the increased division of labour in the society, the collective conscience in the people
diminishes. As a result of which, the laws also change its nature from repressive to restitutive
which means more of civil and administrative laws rather than penal laws.

For Durkheim, social solidarity can be visibly seen in the laws of the society. The change in the
solidarity forces a change in the law of the society. This shift in the nature of law is influenced
by the changes in the moral foundations of the society. The change from mechanical to organic
solidarity is a paradigm of how changes in the society leads to the changes in the law. The
restitutive law has in its core the value of cooperation. Its purpose is to restore the relations
between the individuals since it is only these individuals who are to coordinate again and again
in the society where complex division of labour exists. Thus, as per Durkheim, the contract is par
excellence the judicial expression of cooperation.

Each type of solidarity as can be seen is associated with different kind of morality. The
repressive law is associated with the morality of constraint where the communal morality is
supreme and any deviation is punished. The restitutive law, on the other hand, is associated with
the morality of cooperation wherein maintenance of the social equilibrium is more important and
desirable.

GEORGE H. MEAD (1863-1931)

George H. Mead (1863-1931) was an American sociologist, philosopher and psychologist. He

was best known as founder of American Pragmatism and a pioneer of symbolic interaction
theory, and as also one of the founders of social psychology.

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 MEAD'S THEORY OF THE SELF

RECOGNIZING that the self cannot show up in consciousness as an "I," that it is dependably an
item, i.e., a "me," I wish to propose a response to the question, What is involved in the self being
an article? The first answer might be that an article involves a subject. Stated in other words, that
a “me” is inconceivable without an “I.”And to this answer must be made that such an "I" is a
presupposition, however never a presentation of conscious experience, for the moment it is
introduced it has gone into the objective case, presuming, if you like, an "I" that watches – yet an
"I" that can disclose himself just by ceasing to be the subject for whom the article "me" exists. It
is, obviously, not simply the Hegelism of that becomes another to himself in which I am
interested, yet the idea of the self as uncovered by introspection and subject to our verifiable
analysis. This analysis reveals, at that point, in a memory procedure an attitude of observing
oneself in which both the eyewitness and the watched show up. To be solid, one remembers
asking himself how he could attempt to do this, that, or the other, chiding himself for his
shortcomings or pluming himself upon his achievements. In this way, in the reintegrated self of
the moment passed, one finds both a subject and an article, however it is a subject that is
currently an object of observation, and has the same nature as the item self whom we present as
in intercourse with those about us. In quite the same fashion we remember the questions,
admonitions, and endorsements routed to our colleagues. However, the subject attitude which we
instinctively take can be exhibited just as something experienced – as we can be conscious of our
demonstrations just through the tactile procedures set up after the demonstration has started.

The substance of this exhibited subject, who along these lines has become an item in being
displayed, but which still distinguish him as the subject of the past experience from the "me"
whom he tended to, are those images which initiated the conversation and the engine sensations
which go with the expression, in addition to the organic sensations and the reaction of the entire
framework to the activity initiated. In a word, just those contents which go to make up the self
which is distinguished from the others whom he addresses. The self appearing as "I" is simply
the memory image who acted toward himself and is simply the same who acts toward different
selves.

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Then again, the stuff that goes to make up the "me" whom the "I" addresses and whom he
watches is the experience which is induced by this action of the "I." If the "I" talks, the "me"
hears. If the "I" strikes, the "me" feels the blow. Here again the "me" consciousness is of the
same character as that which arises from the action of the other upon him influenced by his very
own social direct in the way in which he is influenced by that of others, that he becomes an
article to his own social lead. That is, it is just as the individual finds himself acting with
reference to himself as he acts towards others, that he becomes a subject to himself as opposed to
an item, and just as he is influenced by his very own social lead in the way in which he is
influenced by that of others, that he becomes an article to his own social direct.

The differences in our memory presentations of the "I" and the "me" are those of the memory
images of the initiated social direct and those of the tactile reactions thereto.

It is unnecessary, in view of the analysis of Baldwin, of Royce and of Cooley and numerous
others, to accomplish more than indicate that these reactions arise earlier in our social lead with
others than in introspective self-consciousness, i.e., that the infant consciously calls the attention
of others before he calls his own attention by affecting himself and that he is consciously
influenced by others before he is conscious of being influenced independent from anyone else.

The “I” of self-examination is that the self that enters into social relations with different selves.
It’s not the “I” that's silent within the indisputable fact that one presents himself as a “me. “And
therefore the “me” of self-examination is that the same “me” that's the thing of the social conduct
of others. One presents himself as acting toward others – during this presentation he's conferred
in account because the subject of the action associated continues to be an object,– and therefore
the subject of this presentation will ne'er seem straight off in aware expertise. It’s the identical
self World Health Organization is conferred as perceptive himself, and he have an effect ones
himself simply in to this point and solely in so far as he will address himself by the suggests that
of social stimulation that affect others. The “me” whom he addresses is that the “me,” so, that's
equally tormented by the social conduct of these concerning him.

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 BRIEF INTRODUCTION OF PIAGET’S WORK

The work of Piaget points essentially at identifying the connection between life and thought, at
associating biology and psychology, but also - although to a lesser extent at combining
psychology and sociology. His work exercises two ways: systematization of psychological
theory based on the encounter with reality on the one hand, and philosophizing on the question of
what is the growth of knowledge, on the other hand. Admittedly, these two questions are in
dissociable - and Piaget did everything to bring the second to the first - but turned towards
different concerns. The effort at systematizing knowledge reached Piaget to attempt “the
universal laws of the coordination of actions”, while his more philosophical work led him to
issues such difficulties as “the psychophysiological [mind-body] parallelism” 4 the
correspondence among mathematics and reality, or micro-macro ties, for example.
In Piaget’s Sociological investigations5, his earlier effort on the coordination of actions is spread
to the interpersonal coordination of activities (and values). He holds particularly the co-
operative features of such coordination. As for the more philosophical proposals or better
epistemological ones they link primarily to the question of “the social totality”, a question
almost similar to that of decrease and development.
The Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget in his famous work in "The Moral Judgment of the Child"
Piaget considered the responses of children to concerns with punishment and justice. He began
with the basis that "all morality consists of a system of laws" and the principle of morality is to
be explored for in the regard which the individual obtains for these rules As a result of this focus
on rules, the motive of the investigation became the child’s understanding of justice.

KINDS OF RULE

Piaget identified two kinds of rules, coercive and rational. The prior are based on regard for
authority and compliance is acquired by punishment. Characteristically, the child’s obedience to
a coercive the rule seems not to depend on assuming its end. The law is a subject and external
reality. Rational rules, on another hand, are organized in a spirit of fairness, reciprocity, and

4 (Piaget, 1970b),
5 (Piaget, 1977, 1995).

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regard for the purposes the rule is expected to serve. Management of coercive rules is a ”morality
of constraint”; management of rational rules is a “morality of cooperation.
The two types of morality are steps on lifeway. A first phase, approximately to the age of eight,
is characterized by assent to authorization and externality of rules. It is a step of ”strict law,” in
which the open fact of infringement, reckless of circumstances or purpose, warrants severe
punishment. in the second step (ages nine to twelve) the duty to punishment fails. there is a
prominent perception of mutuality, fair treatment and common regard among companions, as
well as an improved capability to distinguish a just rule from one that is slightly authoritative.
The younger children do not try to understand the psychological meaning; actions and execution
are for them naturally so much matter to be taken into some kind of perspective, and this kind of
perspective mechanics, this materialism of retributive decision, so closely related to time moral
authenticity thought before, makes them insensitive’ to the individual side of the problem.
children who put retributive decision above distributive are those who approve the point of view
of adults force, while those who put fairness of procedure above punishment are those who, in
their similarities with other children, or more infrequently in the relations among themselves and
adults have learned better to know the psychological condition and to find according to norms of
a new moral kind.

THE INTERPERSONAL COORDINATION OF VALUES

The issue of qualities makes a changeless and focal worry of Piaget. Activities are told by values,
and the coordination of qualities - especially the contemplated coordination of qualities -
intrigued him structure the protestant activism of his immaturity chip away at equilibration and
intelligent deliberation, experiencing The ethical judgment of the kid or Wisdom and daydreams
of reasoning, for instance. Activities or regularities of activity the qualities are articulated by
guidelines, or rules or principles (specifically social), which, to a specific breaking point, set
them up (" act consequently"). Rules are connected by signs. Qualities, rules, and signs, draft, for
Piaget8, the chief wellspring of sociologies.

In the conditions of human science, the focal hypothesis of Piaget is that the laws of qualities
(the scholarly activities of thinking and assessing) are additionally situated at the relational level.
There is a similitude between the intellectual structures including the equilibration of relational
affiliation. "To collaborate, it is to work as a rule," he says. Piaget is basically intrigued by the

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dealings and "the synchronic" steadiness of qualities, less in the laws and qualities which appear
and vanish before. that synchronic strength - which doesn't rely especially upon highlights - are
fairly normal and next to no f0rom one society to another. His hypothesis of relational security
lays on yet not trite thought, in the sociological or budgetary proficiency. Generally all activity
or reaction of an individual, concluded by his own measure, surely has impacts on others; it is
useful, terrible, or unconcerned with them, in other words, it denotes an expansion ( + ) of their
qualities (= fulfillment), a diminishing of their qualities ( = misfortune), or an invalid distinction.
Suppose two people, acting towards b. The values which come into entertainment here are the
value of the action for a, Ra, the pleasure of b, sb, the valorisation of a by b (distinct from his
pleasure) and the debt that b has towards a. Examining that b towards a, b is in a with a. There is
interpersonal stability when R + S = 0 for each person. One of the dimensions of the insight
which interests Piaget lies in the reality that debts are valorisations to take a normative
personality: This obligation characteristic of normative reciprocity is explicable by the fact that
neither a nor b would value the other while acting so as to be oneself devalued. For example, a
cannot at the same time respect b and lie to him, because then b will stop respecting a and a may
thus stop respecting bor himself.6 In other words, social balance (here between two individuals)
is accompanied is at the same time social (equilibrium) and individual (obligation, debt). Social
insight emerges from the social interactions and determines the obligation in personal
consciences. It is from this same point of view that Piaget analyzes legal stability and moral
equilibriums. Admittedly, all legal stability are not static in Piaget’s sense, i.e., auto regulated
rules formed during history under force, under nonreciprocal and unbalanced relationships, and
are, in a way, extrinsic to people.

THEORY OF MORAL EVOLUTION

In Piaget’s theory moral evolution is considered ‘by alterations in personality, rules, and social
relations at stage one the child is egocentric rather than self-sufficient. The tie is basically a
“loner," inadequate to involve in genuine collaboration; his play is characteristically mechanical
among imitative; at the equivalent time, he is commanded by respect for adult pleasures. At this
stage, the child does not identify his own perspectives from the perspective of others, and clay
psychological principles for criticism of authority have not been generated.

6 (Piaget 1995, p. 120, translation revised).

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The development of staging to views the child increasing his independence from adult restriction
He attends to the companion group for satisfaction. In the companion group awareness of
collaboration takes hold. Group participation encourages a more generalized less egocentric
approach to the world and, at the same time encourages the child to explore the barriers that
separate him from others.
According to Piaget, cooperation considers tile cooperation of independent individuals and as the
child's own independence progresses he obtains respect for time independence of others. Thus
the morality of cooperation is a morality of rational rules, interdependent exercises, and
independent individuals.

FOUR DEVELOPING STAGES

The four developing stages are defined in Piaget's theory as:

1. Sensorimotor stage: birth up to the age of two. The infants experience life through
mobility and their feelings. Through the sensorimotor stage, children are notably
egocentric, meaning they cannot see life from others' perspectives. The sensorimotor
stage is divided into six substages: I. Simple reflexes;
From birth up to one month. At this time children use reflexes such as rooting and
absorbing.
II. First habits and initial round reactions;
From one month up to four months old. During this time children learn to regulate
sensation.
III. Secondary round reactions;
From four up to eight months. At this time they become knowledgeable of things
surpassing their own body; they are further object-oriented. At this point, they might
randomly shake a knock and proceed to do it for the sake of entertainment.
IV. Coordination of secondary round reactions;
From eight months up to twelve months old. During this stage, they can do things
intentionally. They can now combine and recombine schemata and try to reach a goal
(ex.: use a stick to reach something). They also begin to understand object permanence in

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 the later months and early into the next stage. That is, they understand that objects
continue to exist even when they can't see them.
V. Tertiary circular reactions, novelty, and curiosity;
From twelve months old to eighteen months old. Through this stage children explore new
opportunities of objects; they try several things to get several results.
VI. Internalization of schemata.
Some advocates of Piaget's studies of childhood, such as Kenneth Kaye explain that his
contribution was as a commentator of countless events not previously defined, but that he
didn't offer the explanation of the methods in real time that affect those improvements,
beyond analogizing them to comprehensive concepts about biological evolution
generally. Kaye's "apprenticeship theory" of cognitive and human development opposed
Piaget's theory that mind developed endogenously in children until the function for
representative reasoning passed them to learn the literature.
2. Preoperational stage: the pre-operational stage, begins when the child starts to learn to
talk at age two and continues up to the age of seven. Through the pre-operational Stage of
cognitive growth, Piaget noted that infants do not yet know actual logic and cannot
psychologically manage information. Children's progress in playing and representing
takes place in this stage. However, the child still has difficulty seeing things from several
points of view.
The pre-operational stage is rare and rationally incompetent in regard to mental
processes. The child is ready to form permanent concepts as well as mysterious beliefs.
The child, though, is still not able to do processes, which are responsibilities that the
child can produce mentally, rather than physically. Assuming in this stage is yet
egocentric, determining the child has trouble seeing the perspective of others. The Pre-
operational Stage is divided into two sub stages: the symbolic role sub stage, and the
intuitive feeling sub stage. The symbolic role sub stage is when children are capable to
understand, interpret, memorize, and picture something in their mind without holding
something in face of them. The intuitive view sub stage is when kids tend to intend the
questions of "why?" and "how come?" This stage is when children desire the information
of understanding everything.

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 3. Concrete operational stage: from ages seven up to eleven. Kids can now maintain and
think reasonably but are restricted to what they can physically manage. They are no long-
drawn egocentric. During this stage, kids become more conscious of logic and
maintenance, topics before foreign to them. Kids also change drastically with their
analysis skills.
4. Formal operational stage: from age eleven up to sixteen and onwards. Kids grow the
abstract idea and can easily sustain and imagine logically in their memory. The abstract
view is newly present through this stage of progress. Kids are now ready to think
abstractly and appropriate metacognition. Besides this, the kids in the formal operational
step display numerous skills orientated towards problem-solving, often in various levels.

PIAGET'S STAGES COMPARED WITH THE EMILE DURKHEIM'S SOLIDARITY

Piaget's two stages communicate exactly to Durkheim's. Mechanical solidarity creates a morality
of constraint and organic solidarity yields immorality of cooperation Respectively asserts a
growth or rationality, common differentiation, and personal liberty. On time another hand, in a
Lengthy analysis on Durkheim, Piaget discusses that French sociologist Lost his initial insight,
denoted in The Division of Labor in Society, that there are two moralities, one based on
conformity to approved norms, the other arising disregard of the requirements and opportunities
of the division of labor. In his succeeding writings on education, Durkheim appeared it recognize
only one reference of moral development acceptance of authority.” Of course, any theory of
determinate ”stages" of moral development is highly exposed, but more contemporary studies
conducted to test Piaget’s theories have confirmed the basic conclusions, especially his theory
that "the child’s earliest morality Is determined to obedience, punishment, and detached things,
and that proceeds toward more internal and individual values.” Some distinct conclusions, such
as the importance of Piaget gave to the companion group in providing the morality of
cooperation, have not been confirmed."

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 CONCLUSION

By going through the respective works of Durkheim, Piaget and Mead, we can understand how
they viewed the moral aspect of the society and how they interpreted it in their own way. Piaget
in describing what he meant by coercive and rational rules tangentially touched upon the writings
of Emile Durkheim when he described mechanical and organic solidarity. This idea that the
morality of constraint gets replaced by a more modern morality of cooperation is also found in
the writings of Mead. Thus, it can be said that these scholars were very much intellectually
linked when they described the concept of morality in their own respective ways.

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 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Websites

1. https://www.britannica.com/topic/mechanical-and-organic-solidarity

2. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1368431011423589?journalCode=esta

3. https://www.thoughtco.com/mechanical-solidarity-3026761

4. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1468795x12453270#articleCitationDownlo
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5. https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3552&context=uclrev

Articles

1. Schiermer, B. (2014). Durkheim's Concept of Mechanical Solidarity – Where Did It Go?

Durkheimian Studies / Études Durkheimiennes, 20, new series, 64-88. Retrieved from
http://www.jstor.org/stable/44174119
2. Bickenbach, J. (1989). Law and Morality. Law and Philosophy,8(3), 291-300. Retrieved
from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3504589

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