Consider now, by contrast, a norm that really does have the character of a brute social veto ortaboo, lacking even the remotest and most circuitous connection with human interests. This isthe norm, famously introduced by Philippa Foot, that prohibits anyone staring at hedgehogsby the light of the moon.
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Absent any connection with human interests
–
for example,disregarding the possibilities that this peculiar nocturnal activity has or is believed to have apropensity to induce insanity or cause earthquakes
–
we should be hard pressed to interpretthis prohibition as a moral norm. If in a given society its violation was seemingly the object of
the familiar panoply of moral responses, such as blame, guilt, shame, and so forth, we could atbest regard it as an aberrant or marginal instance of a moral norm.