Emile Durkheims beliefs that law stems from morality, and also whether or not law is an expression of peoples universal values.

Essay by ls62805University, Bachelor'sA-, June 2006

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Durkheim's definition of law is simply stated as a set of beliefs or vales shared by members of society, which revolves around a moral basis. He argued that traditional societies were 'motorized' and were held together by the fact that everyone was more or less the same, and thus had things in common. He also believes that law is a sort of moral cohesion whereas members of society are held together by common values and law is the "glue" of sort. Durkheim developed a set of characteristics of what law should be and they are as follows 1) law should be an indicator of collective morality, 2) law should regulate relationships in the division of labor, and finally 3) law has to constrain individuals to produce social order. Durkheim observed and studied how societies developed, the problem he had was morality was the basis of law and morality can't be observed.

To complete this and further his study he came up with a solution and that was to study social facts of a group these being their tendencies, practices, or beliefs.

Law is definitely an expression of a society's moral values; however universal values may be stretching it a bit. Essentially everybody has morals but they are not always the same, and not everyone follows them the same way. Durkheim makes a good point by stating that law is an expression of values. Somebody that commits an act to harm society's collective conscience may face different punishments depending on where they committed the crime. More simply stated not all countries and or states have the same legal policies some may be more lenient then others. An example of this could be committing murder in Texas as opposed to committing it in Massachusetts. In Texas usually the offender would be...