There’s essentially three categories of ‘moral code’ in modern society and each is adopted based on the adherent’s relationship to the legal system. The dominant one is essentially a set of heuristics for staying out of trouble if you’re middle-class: don’t lie, cheat, steal.
If your relationship to the legal system is dominated by being policed or experiencing the court system ‘from below’, for whatever reason, then the moral code is a set of heuristics for staying out of trouble given those circumstances: most importantly, ‘don’t snitch’.
If you’re rich and have good access to the legal system, then you don’t really need a ‘moral code’ as such, you just consult a lawyer directly. You can afford to conform to the ‘word of the law’ rather than rely on heuristics.
They’re also learned in different ways: the ‘middle-class moral code’ is learned primarily through media representations of justice, the ‘code of the street’ through word of mouth (and sometime ritual), and the ‘way of the wealthy’ through professional consultation.
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