Morality is a work in progress. We’re all part of the process, pushing for what we think is right while balancing our personal beliefs with the values of the cultures we belong to.

In the very beginning, morality was all about survival. Early human societies were small, and everyone needed to work together to stay alive. The rules were simple. Don’t hurt the group. Help out. Share what you’ve got. The basics were:
1. Don’t steal food because you might need help in the future.
2. Don’t hurt people because if you kill someone, your group is weaker.

The rules were there to keep the group safe. Early humans weren’t sitting around pondering deep philosophical questions about justice. They were focused on making sure they didn’t get eaten by wild animals or get into fights that would break up the tribe.

As societies grew bigger, morality started getting tied to religion and social order. In places like ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece and later Rome, moral systems began to reflect the power of the gods or kings. These cultures created elaborate laws that were based on the idea that there was a divine force or a ruler who decided what was right and wrong.

In Mesopotamia, the Code of Hammurabi (around 1754 BCE) set out clear rules for things like property rights, family relations and punishments. If you messed with someone’s stuff, you’d get punished, but if you did good, the gods would reward you. This wasn’t about “moral philosophy” as we think of it today. It was about maintaining order and pleasing the gods.

In Ancient Egypt, moral behavior was tied to the concept of Maat, a divine force of truth, justice and order. Pharaohs were seen as divinely appointed, and the laws were seen as the will of the gods. If you took someone else’s grain, you’d be in trouble not only with the person you stole from but also with the gods who were watching over everything. If you didn’t follow the rules, you weren’t just breaking a law. You were upsetting the natural balance of the universe. If you lied or harmed someone, you weren’t just being a bad person, You were dishonoring the gods.

Fast forward to the Greeks and Romans, and now things get a little more philosophical. In these cultures, thinkers like Socrates, Plato and Aristotle started asking big questions about what makes something right or wrong. Instead of just following religious rules or laws, they began to think more about reason, justice, and what it means to live a good life.

According to Socrates, knowledge of right and wrong came from understanding the world through questioning and reason. He didn’t think moral rules were handed down from the gods. He believed that we could discover moral truths through dialogue and thought.

Plato took it further by arguing that there were absolute moral truths, and that what we see as “good” in our world is not subjective or dependent on human perceptions, but an imperfect version of the absolute “Good” that exists in the absolutely perfect world.

Aristotle, on the other hand, focused on virtue and character. He thought being moral was about developing good habits and acting in ways that were practical and balanced. To him, “golden mean” meant “not too much, not too little.” For example, courage is a virtue, but if you’re too reckless, you’re not courageous, and if you’re too timid, you’re not courageous either.

In the Middle Ages, religion became the guiding principle for almost all moral thinking in the Western world. This time it was Christianity that was dominant in Europe, and morality was all about following God’s will and living in a way that would lead to salvation.

The Ten Commandments and ideas of sin became the framework for morality. Right and wrong were tied to whether you followed God’s law. Murder, theft, adultery, lying and more, were seen as sins, and the ultimate consequence wasn’t prison, but going to Heaven or Hell. Damnation was as eternal as salvation. At the same time, there were other cultures like Islamic and Buddhist societies, where morality was also deeply tied to religion. In these cultures, living morally meant following the teachings of the Quran or the Buddha’s path to enlightenment.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Enlightenment radically shifted how people thought about morality. Philosophers like John Locke, Immanuel Kant and Jean-Jacques Rousseau argued that morality wasn’t just about religion or following laws. It was about reason, individual rights, and the social contract, the idea that people agree to live by certain rules to protect their freedom and safety.

Kant, for example, argued that people have inherent dignity and that moral rules should apply universally. No one should ever be treated as a means to an end. He said, “Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law.” He was saying, if you’re going to do something, ask yourself, “Would this be okay if everyone did it?”

The abolition of slavery in many countries like the United States was a response to this enlightened thinking. The idea that no human being should be treated as property, regardless of race, background or culture made slavery, torture, and denying women the right to vote start to be seen as morally unacceptable.

Three or four hundred years ago, these ideas were new and people struggled to implement them. Today, morality continues to evolve. Issues like gender equality, LGBTQ+ rights, and environmental justice have become major moral concerns worldwide. The UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) is an example of how modern societies are working toward a universal set of moral standards.

Our ideas about right and wrong have evolved from basic survival rules to complex philosophical discussions about rights, justice and human dignity. We’ve gone from divine law to reason-based morality, from following kings and gods to asserting individual human rights. We’re still wrestling with myriad cultural differences. What’s seen as “right” in one place can still be controversial in another.