Conventions, Customs, and Morals
“Some rules are necessary for the game of life; they may differ in different groups, but within the group they must be essentially the same. These rules may be conventions, customs, morals, or laws. Conventions are forms of behavior found expedient by a people; customs are conventions accepted by successive generations, after natural selection through trial and error and elimination; morals are such customs as the group considers vital to its welfare and development.”
Will Durant, Story of Civilization, Volume 1
One example of a convention is a particular aesthetic fashion. Perhaps in a college, it’s a fashion among the students to wear sandles.
When a fashion gets passed down from one generation to another, it becomes a custom. For example, it is a custom for certain kinds of male office workers to wear a tie, and this has been true for some generations now.
Customs like fashion help to smooth social interaction. Dressing similarly communicates that one is in the same community as another.
Even more important for avoiding conflict are traffic customs.
If one driver follows the rule of driving on the left while another driver follows the rule of driving on the right, the two are in for a head-on collision.
An example of a custom that rises to the level of morals is the custom of taking care of your aging parents. This is considered by many a group to be, as Durant says, “vital to its welfare and development.”
The most important morals for avoiding conflict are the morals that are a matter of law and justice: especially self-ownership and property rights. If two people believe they have the right to dispose of the same body or the same scarce good, then this is a recipe for conflict and perhaps violence.
