Morality

differentiation between right and wrong, virtues and vices

Morality is the concept of doing the right thing. Morals are basic guidelines for living. It is about conventions or rules, and tries to classify actions and intentions into two groups.

  • Some of them are good / true
  • Others are wrong / false

Cicero introduced the term when he wrote philosphia moralis. He used it to translate Ancient Greek Ethike (which is ethics, in English)

Morality in other fields

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Authority and choice

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Many people have written about ways of choosing what the right thing is. Some believe that there is an objective (true even if you do not agree with it) morality, often thinking it was set by God or another similar being; others think that morality is subjective (that what is good or bad is a community choice).

People can learn morals from religion, parents, friends, school, books, or from ethical traditions. People that teach or follow morals are called moralists.

It can also be a lesson that someone learns in a book or story. It is usually one line at the end of the story ("The moral of this story is....."). Fables are stories with a moral.

The opposite of "moral" is "immoral", meaning the wrong thing to do. "Amoral" means something that is not related to morality, or has no morally good or bad aspect to it. It is the same as "morally neutral". Morality means that you can tell between a right and a wrong thing.

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