Self-Reliance?

Emerson seems to live in a very poetic state of mind. While I appreciate his type of idealistic view of the world, I don’t see how his theory of self-reliance would exactly work well in society. Emerson says, “No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution, the only wrong what is against it.” All universal ideas of right and wrong are thrown out of the window. Everyone decides for himself what is right and what is wrong. I’m not sure how far Emerson would take this concept to justify his actions, but I would question how we can keep people from harming others if we can’t constitute a right and wrong. How then are we to punish those who do harm or "wrong" if we have no general sense of what wrong is?

I commented on Abbey Griffin's post.