General vague norms give way to specific rules as communities lose shared meanings.

Evidence

The extent to which this is true for morally and politically loaded words such as “liberty” is likely to vary with time, place, and culture. Take, for example, the transformation of the “honor codes” at various venerable universities. These codes were phrased in quite general terms at their inception in the 18th and 19th centuries because these schools contained homogeneous student bodies who shared a common conception of the type of conduct definitionally incorporated within the word “honor.” If a person thought that purchasing a term paper from a professional term paper service was consistent with being honorable, then that person simply did not know what “honor” meant. As values have changed and as student bodies have become less homogeneous, however, shared definitions of terms such as “honor” have broken down. Some people now do think that buying a term paper can be honorable, and this breakdown in shared meaning has caused general references to “honor” to be displaced in such codes by more detailed rules. There may now be little shared agreement about what the precept “be honorable” requires, but there is considerable agreement about what the rule “do not purchase a term paper” requires. — Frederick Schauer, Formalism, 27

Categorization

• XREF: Illustrates the shift from standards to rules when consensus breaks down — connects to legal scholarship on rules versus standards (e.g., a rule’s clarity preserving coordination across diverse populations). — connects to: Cultural meanings are unstable and shift with the social field; The legal form of composition fallacies moves from specifics to generalities. — Ruggero J. Aldisert, Agatha D. Aldisert, Logic for Lawyers- A Guide to Clear…, 1219; Traditional social structures and orders can disintegrate over time (+5 more)
• SEED: Could support an essay on why vague university honor codes are being replaced by prescriptive lists, as a microcosm of norm-to-rule transitions in pluralistic institutions.

Related

• Similar groups need sharper ritual distinctions than very different ones (similarity 0.87)
• Eroded ‘master concepts’ lose their explanatory reach over social phenomena. (similarity 0.84)
• Cities explicitly teach behavioral rules only when tradition and cues break down (similarity 0.83)
• Loss of communal relationships destroys the framework in which common sense operates (similarity 0.81)

Broader Connections

• Cultural meanings are unstable and shift with the social field #corroborates (0.70)
• The legal form of composition fallacies moves from specifics to generalities. #contradicts (0.60) — Ruggero J. Aldisert, Agatha D. Aldisert, Logic for Lawyers- A Guide to Clear…, 1219
• Traditional social structures and orders can disintegrate over time #exemplifies (0.60)