The next few blog posts I will be writing will be dealing with morality and moral principles. So, as a precursor to those, I will be giving an overview of morality as it is in our society.

The basic definition of morality is distinguishing between what is right and wrong. People use their moral principles to make choices and decide between good and bad actions.

However, morality does not look the same for everyone. People have different opinions and feel differently about what they believe is right and wrong. This begs the question: is morality objective or subjective?

Religious people are more likely to think that morality is objective because they believe that God has established a set moral framework that must be abided by, or else they will be punished. Then there is the idea that morality is human-made, and thus subjective, and can legitimately change across people’s belief systems, cultures, and time periods.

Personally, I think morality is subjective because everyone has their own opinions and varying levels of what they believe is right and wrong. Although society tends to agree on some of the major moral issues, other shared morals are less common but felt to be just as morally correct. Beliefs and morals have also altered drastically throughout time, proving that subjective morality seems to be the more plausible answer.

The one thing that is generally agreed upon regarding morality is the formula that distinguishes if something is moral or not. There are four components to consider when deciding if something is morally right or wrong. These are whether the action is conscious or unconscious and whether it affects well-being or does not affect well-being. From these, an action can be determined as moral, immoral, or amoral, meaning it cannot be judged as right or wrong.

This formula says that an action must be conscious and affect well-being to be judged as either moral or immoral. If the action is unconscious or does not affect well-being, it cannot be judged as moral or immoral because it does not even fall within the moral sphere. It would be irrational to judge someone for something they cannot control or something that does not affect anyone.

Here is a table I made to help understand the concept of what falls in the moral vs. amoral sphere.

In conclusion, the sphere of morality has a basic framework, but once in application, it quickly becomes a jumbled mess of divergent opinions, beliefs, and justifications on what is right and wrong.