[rdavl]

I think what you are looking for is called "common sense".

You won't be going around murdering people since it is common sense and you are brought up this way.

Murder and dirty joke is not the same thing if you have any common sense and that's why usually murder has priority over dirty jokes in court. You usually don't get sued for dirty joke. That's why we don't call dirty jokes a murder nor we call murder a joke.

And the common sense is what should set our priorities. Who would you rather see in court first mass murderer or a thief? And on what grounds do you decide this? How do YOU decide which is more offensive? Do we have scales for it?

[MoreMoschops]

"Common sense" is not much more than a myth now that (many, including those of the majority of the posters here) societies are not homogenous and not filled with people all subscribing to a very narrow view of what is right and wrong. I believe "common sense" is, in this context, a way of stating a belief without feeling that any evidence is required. A bit like religion.

There was a thread around here somewhere in which the correct, acceptable behaviour of a society (real, not an imaginary example, unless I radically misread it) involved boys becoming men by giving oral sex (and swallowing) to older men. A neighbouring society decided anal sex was the way to go. This is simply "common sense" in those societies. Everyone agrees.

We live in societies where one person's "common sense" is another person's completely unacceptable behaviour.

"Who would you rather see in court first mass murderer or a thief?"

Will you be petitioning the courts to refuse to try thieves unless everyone accused of murder has been tried already? That would essentially legalise theft.