The Seven Universal Rules of Morality
Are you a moral realist or a constructivist about morality? Okay, fancy philosophical jargon for: do you think moral truths are universal and mind-independent, that they “exist out there,” so to speak; or do you think morality is an arbitrary construct of human beings, tightly connected to specific cultural places and times? As I’ve argued before, there actually is a third way, which — not surprisingly — is the one taken not just by the Stoics but essentially by all the Hellenistic philosophies (Epicureans, Skeptics, Cynics, etc.): morality is a constrained human invention. It is not mind-independent (what would that mean anyway?), but it isn’t arbitrary either (sorry, moral relativists!). It is guided by both biological and cultural evolution.
Recently, empirical research has been published that yields some support for this view, though what we should make of the results of such research is open for discussion, meaning that the data by themselves do not settle everything (hence, philosophy!). Rich Haridy, in an article that appeared in New Atlas (full disclosure: I am quoted in it), has summarized the findings of a group of Oxford anthropologists who claim to have identified seven human moral universals.
The researchers analyzed ethnographic accounts of 60 different societies, which led them to conclude that there are some moral precepts that are found…
