Much moral philosophy is devoted to the explanation of
this feature of morality, and to the elucidation of the sense
that morality is something 'there' to be recognized, not made
by deliberate human choice. But the fact itself as distinct
from its explanation is not a peculiarity of moral rules. This
is why this feature of morality, though exceedingly important,
cannot serve by itself to distinguish morality from all
other forms of social norms. For in this respect, though not in
others, any social tradition is like morals: tradition too is
incapable of enactment or repeal by human fiat. The story,
perhaps apocryphal, that the headmaster of a new English
public school announced that, as from the beginning of the
next term, it would be a tradition of the school that senior
boys should wear a certain dress, depends for its comic effect
wholly on the logical incompatibility of the notion of a tradition
with that of deliberate enactment and choice. Rules
acquire and lose the status of traditions by growing, being
practised, ceasing to be practised, and decaying; and rules
brought into being or eliminated otherwise than by these slow,
involuntary processes could not thereby acquire or lose the
status of tradition.