When I was in the 9th grade, a substitute teacher responded to a student’s remark by saying, “There is no statement that is always correct–including this one.” The teacher’s proposition has stayed with me for 60 years.
Rules aren’t made to be broken. Some are designed to be obeyed and others serve as guidelines. But most rules have exceptions. And the exceptions to some rules are themselves codified. Self defense is an exception to Thou shalt not kill. Protecting the life of the mother is an exception to rules against abortion.
Philosophers debate whether Immanuel Kant correctly argued that an owner was required to answer truthfully if brigands at the door asked whether he was hiding someone they were intent on murdering. I side with those who say Kant got this one wrong.
Whether we acknowledge and allow exceptions to rules lies at the heart of the nature of rules in a moral system. Some want to treat codified laws–especially those sanctified as having divine authority–as absolute, inviolable. But scarcely anyone lives that way when we get down to the nut cutting. which is why absolutist preachers occasionally find themselves caught violating the rules the espouse as absolute for everyone else.
There is a more profound argument against forbidding exceptions to rules. To make a rule absolute means treating it as an idol, 
something to which unconditional allegiance must be paid. But rules are conditional. They are the encapsulated judgments of human beings. None come from beyond this realm of coming and going. Treating them as absolute leads to a gnat-gagging, camel-swallowing literalism that kills the spirit and chokes the life out of living. And it does not produce more trust or make for better moral guardrails.
It is also true, however, that a moral system cannot endure if everyone violates norms and rules when they find them inconvenient or costly. Promiscuous deviance destroys even more than absolute fealty to rules.
This is why, in the conversation about right and wrong, we gravitate toward rationally justifiable exceptions. We enforce the rules because they are the rules; but many also agree that there are times when the right thing is to break the speed limit in order to get an injured child to the hospital for emergency treatment.
This component of The Great Conversation gathers resources and posts that speak to the basic questions:
- Do all rules have exceptions?
- When (under what conditions) is it wrong to comply slavishly with a rule?
- When is it allowed to break a rule?
- When is breaking a rule morally required?
- Who decides? (Is everyone her own judge on this issue?)
I hope others will chime in on these and related questions by bringing articles to my attention and contributing your own thoughts.