We ask a single question: How do we, through our customs, laws, religion, and common practice, go about justifying the violation of these deeply important, perhaps universal, moral imperatives, all the while holding tightly to their importance? The short answer is this: With empathy and logic we draw boundaries and through political debate we set priorities to resolve dilemmas. An infusing theme running throughout is the life-defining importance of assessed social worth. From time to time science, technology, and crystallizing events disturb, clarify, and inform existing understandings of the implied sense of social worth. New resolutions of dilemmas and definitions of life’s protective boundaries are called for. In this manner moral systems evolve. We will find they do so along a jagged and often contentious path.