Morality (from the
Latin "manner, character, proper behaviour") has three principal meanings. In its first descriptive usage, morality means a code of conduct held to be authoritative in matters of right and wrong, whether by society, philosophy, religion, or individual conscience. In its second normative and universal sense, morality refers to an ideal code of conduct, one which would be espoused in preference to alternatives by all rational people, under specified conditions. To deny that 'morality' in this sense, refers, is a position known as
moral skepticism. In its third usage 'morality' is synonymous with
ethics, the systematic philosophical study of the moral domain. Ethics seeks to address questions such as how a moral outcome can be achieved in a specific situation (
applied ethics), how moral values should be determined (
normative ethics), which morals people actually hold to (
descriptive ethics), what is the fundamental nature of ethics or morality itself, including whether it has any objective justification (
meta-ethics), and how moral capacity or moral agency develops and its nature (
moral psychology). In applied ethics, for example, the prohibition against taking human life is controversial with respect to
capital punishment,
abortion and wars of
invasion. In normative ethics, a typical question might be whether a lie given for the sake of protecting someone from harm is justified. In meta-ethics, a key issue is what is meant by the terms right or wrong.
Moral realism would hold that the individual is attempting to elucidate some objective moral fact, whereas the various branches of moral non-realism would hold that morality is derived from: the
norms of the prevalent society (
cultural relativism); the edicts of a god (
divine command theory); is merely an expression of the speakers sentiments (
emotivism); an implied imperative (
prescriptivism); strictly speaking false (
error theory). Some thinkers hold that there is no correct definition of right behavior, that morality can only be judged with respect to particular situations, within the standards of particular belief systems and socio-historical contexts. This position, known as
moral relativism, often cites empirical evidence from anthropology as evidence to support its claims. The opposite view, that there are universal, eternal moral truths is known as
moral absolutism. Moral absolutists might concede that forces of social
conformity significantly shape moral decisions, but deny that cultural
norms and
customs define morally right behavior. These thinkers typically also emphasise the commonalities in morality found across cultures, for example
taboos on incest, prohibitions on in-group killing, etc.
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