An Old Question

The question of whether morals are objective or subjective lies at the heart of ethics, one of philosophy’s oldest and most contentious debates.

Do right and wrong exist independently of human opinion, culture, or even biological evolution, as discoverable facts akin to mathematical truths?

Or are they human inventions, products of individual feelings, social agreements, or adaptive survival strategies?

Moral Objectivism

Moral objectivism asserts that at least some moral truths are objective. They hold regardless of what anyone believes, much like 2 + 2 = 4 remains true even if a society denies it. Proponents argue that certain actions are intrinsically wrong. Torture of innocent children for pleasure, for example, is not merely disliked. It is wrong in itself.

Plato, in his theory of Forms, suggested that Goodness itself exists in a perfect, non-physical realm, and earthly moral judgments are imperfect reflections of that eternal standard.

Religious traditions often ground objectivity in divine commands: if God deems murder wrong, it is wrong because it violates a transcendent moral order.

Modern secular objectivists, such as moral realists like Derek Parfit argue that moral facts can exist as part of the natural world without requiring God. They point to apparent moral convergence across cultures. Nearly every society condemns unprovoked murder and values reciprocity. This convergence suggests humans are responding to the same underlying moral realities. Moral disagreement does not disprove objectivity any more than scientific disagreement disproves physical reality; we simply have incomplete access to the truth.

Moral progress also suggests objectivity: abolishing slavery or extending rights to women feels like discovering that these practices were always wrong, not merely changing preferences.

Moral Subjectivism

Moral subjectivism and relativism, by contrast, deny independent moral facts. Subjectivists hold that moral statements express personal attitudes or emotions. When someone says “stealing is wrong,” they are essentially saying “I disapprove of stealing,” and nothing more. A.J. Ayer and other logical positivists treated moral language as emotive rather than factual. Cultural relativists, influenced by anthropologists like Ruth Benedict, observe vast moral differences across societies (polygamy accepted in some, condemned in others; honor killings defended in certain cultures but abhorred elsewhere) and conclude that right and wrong are defined by local norms.

What is “right” is simply what a culture approves

Evolutionary ethics further undermines objectivity by framing morality as a biological adaptation. Traits like empathy, fairness, and guilt likely evolved because they enhanced group survival. Richard Dawkins and others describe morality as a byproduct of natural selection operating on genes or memes. If morality is an evolutionary tool, it serves human flourishing rather than reflecting cosmic truth. Right and wrong become contingent on what helped our ancestors reproduce, not eternal principles.

Critics of subjectivism argue it leads to intolerable conclusions. If morality is merely preference or cultural habit, then no culture can be legitimately criticized from outside. The Nazis’ actions would be “right” within their worldview, and moral reformers like Martin Luther King Jr. would be reduced to imposing personal tastes. Subjectivism struggles to explain the force of moral language: we do not merely dislike genocide; we feel it ought not to happen, even if everyone approved.

Yet objectivism faces its own challenges. Where exactly do these objective moral facts reside? Appeals to intuition risk circularity, since what feels self-evident may be culturally conditioned. Kant’s categorical imperative aimed to provide a rational foundation, but its derivations remain disputed. Evolutionary debunking arguments suggest that even if we intuit objective morals, natural selection could have wired us that way for pragmatic reasons, casting doubt on their reliability.

The debate resists easy resolution

Moderate positions attempt synthesis: some morals may be objective (basic prohibitions against harm), while others are culturally variable. Others embrace error theory, which holds that there are no moral facts at all and that all moral statements are false.

Ultimately, how we answer shapes everything from law and politics to personal relationships. If morals are objective, we have grounds for universal human rights and moral criticism across borders. If subjective, tolerance becomes paramount, but condemnation of atrocity risks becoming mere disapproval.

The question endures because both positions capture something intuitively compelling about our moral experience: the sense that some things truly ought not be done, and the recognition that moral beliefs vary dramatically across time and place.

Whether right and wrong exist independently of us remains philosophy’s open wound. We continue arguing because the stakes (how to live, how to judge, how to build societies) are nothing less than the meaning of good and evil itself.