- What is morality?
- Morals and ethics
- Types of morale
- Importance of morale
- Examples of moral
- Immoral and amoral
We explain what morality is, its origin, types, examples and relationship with ethics. Also, differences between the amoral and the immoral.
What is morality?
Morality is a set of rules, traditions and assessments that are part of the tradition historical and cultural of a society. It serves to distinguish good and evil, that is, good actions from bad actions. It is often handled as synonymous of the ethics, although depending on the point of view they are not exactly the same.
The existence of morality is a unique feature of human societies, since free will and conscience make us capable of judging the way we live, and of distinguishing between those that contribute to stability and social harmony from those that no. That is, it allows the emergence and existence of values.
However, much has been debated throughout the history as to what exactly good and evil are. This has traditionally been dealt with by the philosophy, especially ethics or moral philosophy.
In its origins, morality was intimately linked to religion and religious codes of conduct, which were then indistinguishable from civic and social life, as there was no separation between Condition and religion. However, this radically changed from the Modernity, to the extent that the humanity it was forced to redefine and rethink its concepts and codes of morality.
Today morality has participation quotas in Sciences, the exercise of the professions and in other areas of human endeavor. And although the different churches and religions continue to constitute important voices on the matter, today we can govern ourselves through a secular, that is, non-religious morality.
Morals and ethics
Usually these two terms are used synonymously, which in principle would have no major drawback. However, from a more specialized point of view, they are distinguished because ethics is a branch of philosophy that aspires to elaborate cross-cultural moral standards, from a universal point of view.
In other words, ethics studies the different ways in which morality is exercised and tries to understand them from a general point of view. Instead, morality applies within a context sociocultural and historical determined: what today we perfectly consider moral, at some point in history was not, and vice versa.
Types of morale
It is possible to classify morality according to the specific area in which your reflections on the good and the bad are circumscribed. As in the following cases:
- Religious morality. That which is determined by a certain mystical or religious tradition, and which is governed by the commandments of its creed or doctrine. It can be a more rigid or inflexible morality, especially in the case of fundamentalist sectors, and although it is inherited from generation to generation thanks to the ecclesiastical institution, in its own way it adapts to the new times.
- Secular morality. That which is not determined by a mystical or religious tradition, even if many of its values coincide with those of a cultural tradition strongly marked by the religious past. For example, Western morality is secular, it is determined by non-religious instances, but the Christian tradition has a lot to do with its foundations.
- Fundamental morality. The one that aspires to be universal, that is, that tends to judge the most basic (fundamental) elements of the existence of human being. For example, Human rights (Human Rights) are based on this type of morality.
- Sexual morality. That which determines the way in which certain sexual practices or orientations are understood, according to a consideration of good or bad often supported by other ideas such as the natural, the reproductive or simply the pleasurable.
- Social moral. With this name we differentiate the moral precepts of society, that is, the traditional and inherited or that prevail at a certain time in a certain group, from those that an individual may have in his internal forum.
- Individual morale. This is the name given to the personal, singular and individual approach that each person has towards the concepts of good and bad. Part of it is determined by collective or social morality, and another part by his own ability to evaluate the reality subjectively.
Importance of morale
Morality is a key concept in the formation of human civilization. On the one hand, a society always requires a code or a set of rules to adhere to in order to guarantee social peace and relative harmony among its members. citizens.
On the other hand, the history of morality is a vital part of the history of mankind. The morality of each era has largely determined the way in which social forces interact and has given it can over others, or even determined who is judged as acceptable and who is not, which has clear repercussions on the life and the death.
Examples of moral
More than moral, there can be examples of moral judgments or of determined moral values, prevailing in some period of history. For example:
- Victorian morality. This is the name given to the strict moral vision that prevailed in England during the reign of Queen Victoria (1837-1901), and which was characterized by intense sexual repression, little tolerance before him crime and the support of a facade of dignity which, however, did not prevent prostitution and child labor.
- Puritan morality. The Puritans were a radical faction of Calvinist Protestantism, which flourished during the reign of Elizabeth I in England. As their name indicates, they defended the need for absolute moral purity, in biblical terms, since human beings had to adhere completely to God's plans to later receive future glory.
- Moral relativism. In this case, we are talking about a philosophical aspect that supports the non-universality of morals and moral values, as a proof that every attempt at morality is necessarily relative, that is, dependent on the context. Therefore, no vision of good or bad can prevail over others.
Immoral and amoral
The concepts of immoral and immorality, or of amoral and amorality, arise from morality itself, but they signify specific contrary aspects:
- The immoral. It is that which is contrary to a vision of specific morality. That which breaks their rules, that contradicts their visions and disobeys their commands. For example, in some traditions islamic and Jewish women it is considered immoral for women to freely show their hair, and therefore they are obliged to cover it with a scarf or a wig.
- The amoral. Instead, it is that which simply does not submit to moral questioning, that is, it does not answer the question about good and evil. This does not mean that it is good or bad, but it can be both, depending on the case and the context, since it is not in its nature to be or not moral. For example, science and technology they are considered amoral knowledge: they can be used morally and for the good of humanity, or they can be used to commit atrocities and impoverish the world.