The 4 differences between moral, immoral and amoral

Ethics and morality are two of the most important components of human life. The fact of living in society makes us create norms about what is right and wrong, the good and the bad, to govern our own lives and try that the people around us follow the same rules of the game.

However, in this aspect it is easy to get confused with the concepts related to our way of understanding good and evil, given that these are very abstract concepts. Therefore, next we will see what they are the differences between moral, amoral and immoral , linked elements that tell us about the degree to which certain behaviors are desirable or not.

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Differences between moral, amoral and immoral

Although sometimes a scale of strongly implanted ethical values ​​or a series of religious dogmas make almost everyone in a community have a similar conception of what is good and what is bad, there are always exceptions. For example, when someone guides their life from very different values ​​to those that follow the rest, it is easy to be labeled as immoral or amoral in an indistinct manner and, consequently, many times incorrectly.

To clarify this, it is good that at first we define what we mean by moral, immoral and amoral and then delve into their differences.

Morality is the set of rules that establish what is right and what is wrong , not in an aesthetic or functional sense, but in an ethical one. For example, in western society it is assumed that killing children is always wrong, and that helping disadvantaged people by providing them with basic necessities is fine.

On the other hand, the immoral is, in short, what goes against the moral, while the amoral is that which is outside of this .

Let's now look at the differences between these concepts.

1. Morality and immorality can be relative, amoral not

In philosophy and in all the fields of knowledge that hang in this area there is much debate about whether the proper rules of morality are relative or if they are universal (and there was still more discussion about this in the past). That is, it is possible that moral rules and what constitutes a violation of the idea of ​​good does not exist as an entity separate from our expectations and social constructions in general, in the same way that money only exists because we have so agreed.

The amoral, on the other hand, can not be relative , because by definition it is what remains when there is no morality.

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2. Morality and the immoral depend on abstract thought

To create standards of behavior it is necessary to have the ability to think abstractly, that is, to think about concepts that group characteristics and properties that can not be isolated in nature (of the way in which a vegetable can be isolated from the rest of the garden).

For example, aggressiveness is not something tangible, but it can be found in the behavior of many animals or, if we use a greater degree of abstraction, even in some climatic phenomena, landscapes, works of art, etc.

The amoral thing, on the other hand, exists independently of whether there is a way of thinking based on the abstract and the semantics, because it is the option that occurs "by default" in nature. On a planet inhabited only by beings unable to use language and to create norms of behavior, amorality.

3. Amorality has no use, the other two, yes

As we have seen, the amoral exists without the need for the appearance of minds with the capacity for abstract thinking. Therefore, it does not pursue any purpose, in the same way that the waves of the sea are not there because they are useful to someone.

Morals and the immoral do exist because they fulfill a function . In particular, they act as a glue that holds society together, allowing networks of relationships between individuals to exist.

4. The moral is desirable, the immoral and the amoral, no

Morality is almost always constructed by more than one individual, and the same happens with the immoral. This means that morality is always referred to as what to aspire to; After all, thanks to the fact that there are people who respect it, society exists as such. In the same way, the immoral and the amoral, being elements that are not moral despite belonging to the same field of knowledge (the definition of what is good and is bad) are conceived as the undesirable, that which must be avoided .

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5. The moral and the immoral define each other

In moral rules implicit is what is immoral . For example, if according to one religion it is said that eating turkey meat next to dairy products is forbidden, the moral is not to mix these foods, whereas the immoral thing is to do it.

The amoral, on the other hand, does not belong to the domain of morality, and that is why there is nothing in the latter that tells us what is amoral. A living being can avoid eating turkey meat along with dairy products due to the demands of its biology, without following moral rules.