Another point to make about the above formulation is of course that “overwhelming majority” is very imprecise. Picking a precise percentage of society, say 90%, has an obvious element of arbitrariness to it (why not 89% or 91%?). Nevertheless, we can argue for a number in this range as a reasonable compromise between two pressures. On the one hand, the percentage we pick should be close enough to 100% to retain the idea that moral rules are for acceptance by the whole society of human beings. On the other hand, the percentage needs to be far enough short of 100% to leave considerable scope for rules about punishment. It seems that 90% is in a defensible range, given the need to balance those considerations. (For dissent from this, see Ridge 2006; for a reply to Ridge, see Hooker and Fletcher 2008. The matter receives further discussion in H. Smith 2010; Tobia 2013; Portmore 2015.)