Abstract
Durkheim supports the thesis of the diversity of social bonds, which constitute many varied sources of morality, or, more precisely, many different possibilities for the individual to rise to the moral life. Durkheim's supportive man is an individual at the same time autonomous and connected to others and to society, an individual conscious of the moral rules that imply participation in social life. If he accepts them, it is for the fulfilment he finds in reciprocity of association and in the feeling of being useful. This awareness, however, remains fragile, it even runs the risk of disappearing under certain circumstances. Thus, he is interested in maintaining it: this is the duty of the State. Durkheim has, in a sense, conceptualized a particular way of social regulation of the bonds, based on an organicist representation of solidarity. We must recognize the strength of this theory, even if the knowledge of modern societies leads us to emphasize that there may be other configurations or regimes of bonds. The social theory of bonding, as we can formulate today, is at once the heir of the conceptual core left by the founder of French sociology and the result of the acquisitions of comparative sociology, which is based on a non-normative approach to modern societies and sensitive to their diversity.
Keywords:
Social ties; Moral bonds; Solidarity; Social theory.