People in every society throughout history have drawn moral lines prohibiting certain behaviors and lauding others, making judgments about right and wrong and what people should and should not do, think, and feel. Humans, it seems, are characteristically moral animals, with some of these moral impulses doubtlessly rooted in our biology.
References
1.
BellahRobert N.MadsenRichardSullivanWilliam M.SwidlerAnnTiptonSteven M.Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life (University of California Press, 1985). A critical view of American individualism and its effects on moral community. A modern classic of sociology
2.
BaumanZygmuntModernity and the Holocaust (Cornell University Press, 2000). A disturbing analysis of the social organization behind one of the world's most notoriously immoral events
3.
GoffmanErvingInteraction Ritual: Essays in Face-to-Face Behavior (Anchor Books, 1963). A field-shaping look into the moral order of everyday life
4.
SmithChristianMoral, Believing Animals: Human Personhood and Culture (Oxford University Press, 2003). A sociologist argues why to be human is to be moral
5.
VaiseyStephen“Socrates, Skinner, and Aristotle: Three Ways of Thinking about Culture in Action.”Sociological Forum (2008) 23(3): 603–13. A brief overview of three ways sociologists of culture have understood the relationship between moral values and the self
