The Nature of Custom
Mores are the moral norms of a group -- the deeply held convictions about what is right and wrong. Unlike laws, they are enforced by social pressure rather than institutions. Unlike folkways, their violation provokes moral outrage.
Sacred and Profane
Every society divides behavior into the permitted and the forbidden. These boundaries shift over time, but their existence is constant. The quest is to understand where the line falls, and why.
The Weight of Tradition
Traditions persist because they compress generations of social learning into repeatable patterns. To follow tradition is to trust the accumulated wisdom of the dead. To break it is to wager that the living know better.
Cultural Variation
What is sacred in one culture is profane in another. The quest reveals that moral universals are fewer than we assume, and cultural specifics are more numerous than we imagine.
The Ongoing Quest
Understanding mores is never complete. New customs emerge, old ones fade, and the quest to comprehend the moral architecture of human societies continues without end.