In Chapter 4, our focus was on disparities between moral judgmental practice and widespread beliefs about what influences moral judgment. The burden of this chapter is to suggest the relevance of some of these findings to our conception of morality. In emphasizing conforming tendencies as corrective and salutary, as I do in this chapter, I do not mean to be seen as arguing that either cultures generally or those around one in particular are all one needs for a morally informed life. Rather, I want to highlight the morally constructive dimensions of socialization and conforming tendencies. In so doing, I hope to counteract the tendency in philosophy to regard these tendencies as slavish and corrupting. Conformity uncompromised is mindless. But autonomy uncompromised is sociopathic.

What makes autonomy uncompromised sociopathic is its refusal to accept any authority but that of the agent's own judgment. We saw that much of moral philosophy applauds the effort to undermine the authority of culture, traditions, associations, and institutions, relegating to the individual the role of validating whatever is to be accepted, without primary or basic reliance on any of these sources.