Morality as a Regulator of Divergence: Protecting Against Deviance While Promoting Diversity

Abstract

Living together cooperatively in groups requires creating and maintaining healthy socio-cultural normative structures (i.e., shared “normed” beliefs, values, practices, and so on) that allow all members of the group to function well, both as individuals and as a part of the communal whole. This requires maintaining a delicate and dynamic balance between protecting members of the group from undue harm, while allowing for individual freedom, choice, and creativity—for example, determining when a new belief, value, or practice is a form of acceptable (even desirable) diversity to be allowed, and when it is a form of deviance to be shut down. I will argue that maintaining this balance is the primary function of morality—and that it requires an understanding of ourselves as moral beings oriented towards “the good” that is stable enough to be shared and passed down to future generations, yet flexible enough to adapt and change as our cumulative experiences expand and alter that understanding.