Imagine, if you will, a world where no one concerns herself with the question of whether her actions, or anyone else’s, are right or wrong. Imagine, in fact, that in this world these terms simply do not exist. What would such a world be like? It is tempting to say that this world would be drastically different than our own, but upon closer examination we find an interesting phenomenon: perhaps no one considers whether an action is “right” or “wrong”, but there must still be some standard of judgment, some reason to choose one course of action over another. We can imagine many such standards: selfishness and personal gain may be the most obvious, but it is certainly not the only possibility. Harmonious relations with others may be a priority, or the feeling of pleasure associated with bringing comfort to someone else, or even a consciously decided-upon principle of universality or justice. If someone in this world were asked why he followed a certain course of action as opposed to another, he might answer that it was because their chosen course adhered more closely to his chosen principles. He might also shrug and say he isn’t sure, but feels strongly that his decision was not an arbitrary one. In short, this world is no different from the one we live in. Morality, therefore, is not dependent on these terms. Rather, morality is the process of understanding and redefining the criteria by which we decide what is right and what is not on a case-by-case basis.

Morality is a very human subject. The way we look at a particular moral question, the specific moralities we invoke, shape our reactions and opinions in profound ways. It is the purpose of this essay not to settle the moral question, but rather to examine the directions from which humans have typically approached morality and ethics, and especially to take note of connections, arbitrary distinctions, and underlying reasoning that may allow us to see multiple facets of a situation at once.

One of the points that many, but certainly not all, moral theories share is that right and wrong are “absolute”. That is, the right course of action in a particular instance is the same for absolutely anyone, anywhere, at any time. This also tends to imply that right and wrong are not normative suggestions given to something by a person (like “beautiful” or “ugly”), but rather are inherent properties of the things themselves (like “green” or “red”). If a red book is lying on a desk, and a color-blind individual walks up to the book and declares that it is green, we can say with confidence that he is wrong, and even make attempts at proving it by comparing wavelengths with truly green objects. We can do this because we have an absolute definition of what “red” means, and it is the same for everyone. If the same individual claims that the book is ugly, though, the same absolute judgment cannot be made; we can argue that the book is not ugly because it is a pleasing shade of red, its pages are crisp and not torn, the subject of the book is not exceedingly banal, etc., but none of this can suffice to prove that the book is, in fact, not ugly.

The absolute definitions of “right” and “wrong,” if they even exist, are extremely elusive. Attempts to define them easily become self-referential; we can provide examples of what is “right” in a particular situation, but few people claim to be able to give a formulaic explanation of what makes something right, let alone one that would fit on a single page. Many of the more noted attempts to provide a definition have done so by attempting to propose one overreaching principle that governs in and of itself whether an action is right or wrong. While it seems clear that if these principles did in fact turn out to be the final arbiter of rightness, all our lives would become a great deal easier, even the most temptingly simple explanations have deep flaws that seriously question their universality and relegate them to the status of “rules of thumb” which, while practically useful, lack the particular metaphysical essentiality their authors were presumably searching for. Others, such as Mill’s utilitarian morality, lead us logically to the conclusion that certain actions are right which very few people in our society today would consider the correct course of action, such as inflicting great harm on one person to raise the level of happiness of many other people by an imperceptible amount. Of course, this does not in itself mean that these theories are wrong, but having to change the current moral rules to fit under a proposed general principle does raise questions about that principle’s immediate applicability to the society in question.