Is morality objective, or is it shaped by culture and personal beliefs?
This is the first of three questions dealing with morality and ethics as posed to me by Microsoft CoPilot.
If one commits to a religious worldview in which all creation is in service to a divine being, then morality is necessarily transcendental and must objectively exist independent of human design or will. On the other hand, when one commits to a secular worldview such as the one anchored in emergence and complexity theory in The Infinite Staircase, the status of morality is much more in play. In that context, we need to address a number of questions, including:
- If there is no divine being, how did morality come to be in the first place?
- On what stair in the staircase does it first emerge?
- How does it evolve in complexity as we move up the staircase?
- What authority can it claim and for whom?
How did morality come to be in the first place?
In a secular worldview, all things emerge from the bottom up and only subsequently are reframed from the top down. Morality enters the stage in the middle, after the stairs of desire and consciousness have established themselves. This pre-moral stage is best exemplified by the behavior of snakes and reptiles. They are clearly conscious and motivated by desire, but they do not exhibit any of the behaviors we associate with morality. These emerge with the rise of mammals.
The mammalian strategy for living is inherently social and collaborative. In that context, we see three core values come into being that will anchor human morality once we come on the scene. The first is nurturing, something all mammals are compelled to do to if their young are to survive. The second is respect, focused primarily on an alpha leader around whom the social order forms and through whom it is maintained. The third is loyalty, a collaborative banding together that helps lions hunt antelopes and antelopes fend off lion attacks. All three of these values are genetically triggered and then further enabled by culture, where social sanctions reinforce adherence and discourage disengagement.
To this heritage we humans brought the faculty of language, thereby enabling narrative, analytics, and theory. All have converged to reframe the history of morality from the bottom-up affair we have just been describing to one or another top-down narrative of the sort that anchors both religious and philosophical systems.
On what stair does morality first emerge?
Morality as a behavior emerges on the stair of values and is subsequently extended by culture where it spreads wordlessly through imitation and social signaling, be that between a mother and her pup, a pack with its leader, or a sibling with a sibling. Animal cultures are local both in time and space, meaning that different groups of the same species can develop different cultures out of the three core mammalian values. This potential for differentiation does not manifest itself greatly, however, until we move up to the next stair, language enablement.
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How does morality evolve in complexity as we move up the staircase?
As humans, with the advent of language, we can share strategies for living across both time and space. This is what sets us apart from all other animals. Initially language enables us to share “good tricks”—amoral actions that create desired results—but over time we develop and share narratives that give structure and meaning to our lives and carry with them moral imperatives. Myths are an early manifestation of this effort, later supplanted by more elaborately developed religions. This is our first foray into metaphysics, our best effort at explaining reality.
Once we have aligned with a metaphysical narrative, we apply analytics to sort out its tactical implications for our strategies for living. This is where morality as a system enters, most often taking shape as a code of ethics. And it is precisely here that we need to proceed with care. Codes are typically deterministic and binary in their prescriptions—life itself is anything but. Moreover, when we impose a code on someone other than ourselves, we are implicitly privileging our metaphysics over whatever they may have chosen for themselves. Codes, that is, are metaphysic-specific—they are embedded in a given worldview and cannot transcend it. When righteous voices demand that their moral code be applied to all behavior across an entire population, and across all periods of history, and that violators of that code be summarily sanctioned, they are wildly overstepping their bounds, something we bear constant witness to, whether it be on social media, in revisionist history, or political posturing.
That said, we do need and want moral codes. They are invaluable in helping us navigate day-to-day living, and they keep us aligned with our metaphysical purpose, whatever that may be. We just need to make sure we treat them and other people with respect. A good safeguard here is to be alert to conflicts between the letter and the spirit of the code. At the end of the day, it is the spirit that matters, and we must not forget that. That is why spiritual practices, be they in the form of prayer, meditation, communal worship, or the like, are so integral to moral life. The integration of metaphysics with ethics represents the foundation of our strategy for living.
What authority can morality claim and for whom?
In a religious worldview, morality claims its authority from above, and its applicability is universal, regardless of whether the person under review shares in the particular faith at hand. There are all kinds of reasons to object to this because it can lead to persecution, war, and even genocide, all in the name of righteousness. That’s in large part what gave rise to a host of secular worldviews emerging in the eighteenth century where moral authority was resituated, coming either from an implicit social contract, as is the case with utilitarianism, or personally from within, either by way of reason, as is the case with Kant, or by way of will, as is the case with existentialism. In all such cases moral authority’s applicability is limited by the scope of the authorizing entity. Reasonable as this may seem, it too leads to a host of objections because relativism provides too many loopholes that prevent us from holding people or institutions accountable when they commit horrific acts.
Such objections have led me to explore a third path, where authority comes not from above nor from within or without but rather from below. Specifically, it comes from our mammalian heritage. The essence of the claim is that the mammalian values of nurture, respect, and loyalty are universally applicable to all people in all societies. To make this as explicit as possible, the claims are:
- If someone injures or neglects a helpless person, that is immoral in any society.
- If someone ignores or disrespects the designated leader of the community in which he or she lives, that is immoral in any society.
- If someone undermines or betrays the wellbeing of a family member or a friend, that is immoral in any society.
No mammal is exempt from these imperatives. Since we are all mammals, the applicability of these standards is genuinely universal. That still leaves a lot of work to do, to be sure, but it does provide a solid foundation upon which to do it.
That’s what I think. What do you think?
Product Manager | Senior Project Manager | I help companies to leverage techonology to achieve business growth.
3moAlthough I share your secular perspective and the general thrust of your argument, dominance hierarchies cannot be overlooked, as they underpin values like nurturing, respect, and loyalty. In social mammals where proto-morality emerges — such as caring for offspring or protecting the group — these behaviors are inseparably bound to hierarchy, with status determining who nurtures, who receives care, and how loyalty is enforced. Any account of morality’s evolutionary foundations must therefore place the dynamics of dominance at its core.
Founder @ Constantis Health | Architect of Health 5.0 (data × empathy × access) | CEE public-private healthcare
3moI don't think so we can go wrong with the categorical imperative.
I think its an oversimplification based on a naturalistic fallacy. Just because mammals evolved certain behavioral patterns (nurturing offspring, hierarchical social structures, in-group cooperation), we cannot assume these somehow form the natural foundation for human morality. Mammals also exhibit infanticide, violent dominance struggles, and abandonment of offspring. Why select nurturing, respect, and loyalty as the "core values" rather than aggression, selfishness, or territorialism, which are equally present in mammalian behavior? Framing "respect" as primarily focused on alpha leaders naturalizes dominance hierarchies as moral foundations. This could easily justify authoritarianism or inequality as biologically ordained rather than critically examining power structures. This reads like an attempt to ground a particular vision of social order (one emphasizing hierarchy and group loyalty) in biological inevitability, which is really an appeal to natural order, cloaked in science. It's the kind of argument is used to justify existing power structures as biologically determined rather than constructed and open to change. Every shaman, priest and politician has made the same argument.
Oil & Gas Expert, Operations, Logistics, Instrumentation and Control Engineering and Project Management Specialist
3moThis is a profound and balanced exploration of the roots of morality, Geoffrey. Your framing of moral authority emerging "from below"—rooted in our shared mammalian values of nurture, respect, and loyalty—resonates deeply, especially in industries like energy and infrastructure where safety, trust, and human interdependence are central. In my experience leading operations and training across the petroleum sector, I’ve seen how ethical systems work best when they’re not just rule-based, but value-driven—grounded in shared purpose and lived experiences. Codes alone often fall short, but when paired with the human spirit behind them, they inspire accountability and cohesion. Thank you for reframing the conversation in such a grounded yet expansive way. It’s a needed perspective in today’s polarized world.
Policy Researcher and Institutional Consultant
3moGreat informative insights on what shapes morality.