ABSTRACT
Social regulation can take many forms; conventional rules, legal frameworks, as well as claims of morality can be used to encourage the behaviors deemed socially desirable. Mere conventions, laws, and moral prescriptions can also intermingle, for example when a clergy makes certain dietary rules a religious and moral obligation, or when a government imposes a dress code as the required demonstration of one’s morality. Such scenarios where morality is given the task of regulating for hidden purposes what one eats or wears are not unheard of even nowadays. Moralizing is an activity that seems more apt to promote conflicts in a given society than to encourage integration. In moralized conflicts, both sides usually claim to have a monopoly on what is good and right in order to publicly discredit and exclude the other side. Such a strategy can only put a stop to communications and further contacts.
