The idea that there should be only one criterion by which to decide the rightness of something is appealing in its simplicity, but there really is no reason to think that must be the way of morality. Morality is a concept both highly abstract and very human, and both of those factors suggest a structure rather more complex (and probably less elegant) than that. If the nature of what is right is not related to one essential principle, though, then what are the other possibilities? One is that there is no governing principle at all, and that our ideas of right and wrong stem simply from our social conventions (differentiated from principles mainly by their lack of coherent justification) and our own personal desires and preferences. This possibility is unsettling to some people, but it cannot be thrown out too cursorily: there are countless instances in history which all suggest that, at the very least, some of our moral rules are socially imposed upon us, and are really quite arbitrary: individuality, for example, is not right, nor is the group-driven mentality of a nation like Japan wrong; yet many Americans see themselves as eminently superior due to their individuality, and such institutions as Hollywood movies and the government itself have reinforced these beliefs for their own purposes. Such arbitrariness may seem unimportant, but it is not much different to say that black is the “wrong” color for a person’s skin to be, an assertion that has led to the suffering of millions. It seems clear, however, that not all moral rules are arbitrarily defined; many seem to promote social interaction and well-being, far more than would be expected by chance. Cultural relativity may help us to examine our existing moral code, but it does not provide a new one, nor does it answer our need for one.

Another option is to see morality as a purely human creation; a tool, if you will, that allows humans to live together in society. This is different from the cultural relativity argument, because it is understood here that any society must include some notion of morality in order to survive. While this argument seems very logical, as it elegantly explains away a lot of the less intuitive areas of morality, several thousand years of viewing a moral life as important for its own sake (rather than for its effects on society) is no easy thing to unravel. The idea is that for a society to exist, a certain level of trust and understanding must be present among its members. Put simply, if I have no reason not to expect to be shot down in the street for no reason, it will be difficult for me to take any active role in society. Laws and moral codes, then, would be simply legal and social sides of the same coin: external pressures to ensure cohesiveness and harmony within the society. This provides an interesting and highly plausible explanation of the historical origins of a moral code, but in practice still depends on each member of society to keep the best interests of the whole in mind.

Another possibility we must consider is that there are many general principles which interact in complicated ways to determine what is right in any given situation. This seems currently to be the most prevalent explanation in a society steeped in science; it can be viewed like a mathematical problem. To the degree that a certain decision adheres to a certain principle, it gains points of “rightness” from that principle. To the degree that it deviates, it loses points. The right decision in any given situation, then, is that decision which ends up with the most points when all relevant principles are considered. The huge problem with this, though, is that it is impossible to quantify the extent to which something is or is not in accordance with an ethical principle. If I am a Catholic priest, and a man comes to me and formally confesses to a murder, I am placed in a position of tension between two conflicting principles: the principle that says that those who commit murder should be brought to trial (a socially ingrained principle, to be sure, but one that encourages the security of the society as a whole), and the principle of my religion that says that things revealed in confession must remain a secret. Because these two principles are, at the moment, completely at odds with one another, the net rightness of any decision is based entirely on which principle I hold to be more important to me.