Morality and Socially Constructed Norms

Abstract Socially constructed norms are everywhere: from the “ladies first” custom to the practice of queuing, from the religious norm that prescribes chastity before marriage all the way to the complex demands that the law places on us. A constant presence in our lives, socially constructed norms elicit mixed emotions. On the one hand, we often feel their moral pull: we think that we would act wrongly if we violated them. On the other hand, we look at them with suspicion: even the most ostensibly innocuous norms may contribute to perpetuating injustice. The challenge, then, is to explain when socially constructed norms place moral demands on us and when they do not. Morality and Socially Constructed Norms addresses this challenge. It traces the moral significance of socially constructed norms to the agential commitments underpinning them and explains when and why those commitments ought to be respected. The book explores the implications of this explanation for three core questions in moral, legal, and political philosophy: the grounding of moral rights, the obligation to obey the law, and the wrong of sovereignty violations. In doing so, Morality and Socially Constructed Norms shows how much progress can be made in normative theorizing when we give socially constructed norms their (moral) due.