moral order

moral order (plural moral orders)

1. A body of unwritten social mores and conventions which serve to maintain societal order.
   • 1749, The Monthly Review, R. Griffiths et al, page 450:

     He here, with remarkable dexterity, shifts the question from the moral order of our world (to which the moral actions of man can only relate) to the general order of the universe.

   • 1757, John Gilbert Cooper, Letters Concerning Taste, R. and J. Dodsley, page 99:

     The imagination...may of course engage us in pursuits utterly inconsistent with the moral order of things.

   • 1758, Margaret Cleeve, Ivison Macadam, The Annual Register of World Events: A Review of the Year Vols. for 1784-85 issued in combined form; 1820, in 2 pts., facsimile reprinted, →ISBN, Longmans, Green (1957), p. 261,

     But the Deputies must understand that the great necessity of to-day is the consolidation of order in the nation, and not only of material order, but of moral order also.

   • 1783, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emilius and Sophia: Or, A New System of Education, page 63:

     He saw not till then his interest in...doing his duty, even at the peril of his life, and in cherishing virtue, not only for the sake of any moral order preferable to the love of himself, but for the sake of the Authour of his being.

   • 1790, John Macdonald, Mr Owen's projects exposed read in The Gentleman's Magazine, F. Jefferies et al, p. 302,

     They are calculated to unhinge and subvert the whole frame and moral order of society.

   • 1797, Thomas Erskine Erskine, A View of the Causes and Consequences of the Present War with France, J. Debrett, →ISBN (reproduction of original) p. 134,

     Those valuable classes of men who take the deepest interest in whatever appears to be connected with the moral order of the world.

   • 1798, Immanuel Kant, Essays and Treatises on Moral, Political, and Various Philosophical Subjects, page 371:

     So may the gospel, though its phenomenon is but an event of nature, be referred to a principle, different from it, and which has for its end the producing of moral order in nature.

   • 1798, William Wilberforce, A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Higher and Middle Classes in this Country, contrasted with Real Christianity, T. Cadell, jun., and W. Davies, (successors to Mr Cadell), p. iv,

     The same awful impressions excited by the divine threatenings and punishments recorded in Scripture, and by the moral order of the world.

   • 1862, John Locke, A system of theology, Stationers' Hall, p. 279,

     So also the apostle expresses this great change as a new creation, or renewing, that is, being made again, or anew, after a moral order.

   • 1891, Diodato Lioy, The Philosophy of Right: With Special Reference to the Principles and Development of Law, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, page 314:

     The moral order embraces the totality of our duties towards God, towards ourselves, and towards our neighbours.

   • 1900, Proceedings of the New York State Conference of Religion, page 92:

     The nation is the form of a moral order as surely as is the family or the church.

   • 1997, Fred Kniss, Disquiet in the Land: Cultural Conflict in American Mennonite Communities, Rutgers University Press, →ISBN, page 177:

     Robert Wuthnow's (1987)...view is that the moral order is the system of all real and conceivable moral codes that "define the nature of commitment to a particular course of behaviour. These elements...have an identifiable symbolic structure."

   • 1998, Roger Scruton, Animal Rights and Wrongs, Demos, →ISBN, page 27:

     By thinking in these terms, we acknowledge all persons as irreplaceable and self-sufficient members of the moral order.

   • 2002, Don Pendleton, Linda Pendleton, A Search for Meaning: From the Surface of a Small Planet, iUniverse, →ISBN, page 74:

     “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you” is perhaps the most succinct definition of moral order ever expressed, given by both Confucius and Jesus in almost identical words from widely separated cultures and times.

   • 2006, J. Wentzel Van Huyssteen, Alone in the World?: Human Uniqueness in Science and Theology, Eerdmans Books for Young Readers, →ISBN, page 289:

     Human culture always implies moral order, and human persons are inescapably moral agents.