We have... intentionally taken a broader view of morality, so as to include in it allsocial rules and standards which, in the actual practice of a society, exhibit the fourfeatures we have mentioned.. We have done this not merely because the weight of
usage of the word ‘moral’ favours this broader meaning, but because to take the
narrower restricted view, which would exclude these, would force us to divide in avery unrealistic manner elements in a social structure which function in an identicalmanner, in the lives of those who live by it. Moral prohibitions of conduct, which maynot in fact harm others, are not only regarded with precisely the same instinctiverespect as those that do; they enter together with the requirements of more rationallydefensible rules into social estimates of character; and, with them, form part of thegenerally accepted picture of the life which individuals are expected and indeed areassumed to live.