If we keep asking "Why?" about our "ways of life", the answers seem to spread further and further from one another into a variety of human morés and then cultures; human morés vary widely within any given society and much more so from society to society. But if we persist in analyzing masses of social evidence, patterns begin to emerge. Based on these patterns, we can make some general statements about people and their ways. For the most part, people act in the ways they do because they have been programmed to act in those ways by their parents, their teachers, and the media of their cultures. For example, close observation shows that the vast majority of humans learn to perform the actions that relieve their bodies’ physical needs in the ways considered socially acceptable in their particular culture.

        

         Balut (soft-boiled fetal duck, Vietnam) (credit: Marshall Astor, via Wikimedia Commons)

In this category, we find the morés that govern how we eat. I far prefer to eat dishes I find familiar from my upbringing. And in my culture, I wash my hands before eating to remove disease-causing germs I might otherwise ingest with my food if I ate it with dirty hands. I’ve never seen these tiny animals, but I’ve been trained to be wary of germs. Therefore, I take measures to neutralize the danger I believe they pose to my well-being. I also make an effort to urinate and defecate only in places deemed acceptable in my society, no matter how urgently nature calls.