The content of common morality consists of moral rules and moral ideals.
The focus on interpersonal morality showed that general moral rules, which some traditional ethical theories strove to develop, were rather crude instruments for conducting a moral life.
The amount of agreement concerning what rules are moral rules, and on when it is justified to violate one of these rules, explains why morality can be a public system even though it is an informal system.
So we seem to reach the disturbing conclusion that morality's rules are like the rules of some sport or parlour-game they aparlour-game theye who choose to join in by obeying them.
But the issue is a moral one, and morality needs rules as well as compassion.
In the criteria set out above, Austin succeeded in delimiting law and legal rules from religion, morality, convention, and custom.
People who exhibit post-conventional morality view rules as useful but changeable mechanisms — ideally rules can maintain the general social order and protect human rights.
Morality requires rules because reason is our distinctive property, and "Reason directs us to Rules" (1864, 45).
Their confrontations serve as a vehicle for an exploration of morality and rules in an unjust society.
