A healthy person must be able to make wise judgements about what is right and wrong. A 
healthy society must have a basic consensus about what is right and wrong, good and bad. Our notions of good and bad have evolved over time. In a life and death situation, whatever is necessary to survive is good and whatever endangers our survival is bad. To a tribal mentality, right and wrong is determined by the chief, elders and shaman, mediated by spirits through folklore and ritual. In a power hierarchy, the strong determine what is right and good, and the weak accept it or suffer the consequences. In the West, codes of morality have come down to us from Greek philosophy and Judaism, notably the 10 commandments:
- Thou shalt have no other gods before me
- Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image
- Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain
- Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy
- Honour thy father and thy mother
- Thou shalt not kill
- Thou shalt not commit adultery
- Thou shalt not steal
- Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour
- Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, wife or property.
Jesus declared that the commandments are fulfilled by loving God and loving your neighbour, and this too has resounded through Western morality. The Church provided tools for analysing right and wrong. The seven deadly sins and the cardinal virtues, taken together, provide a series of oppositions between good and evil: lust vs. chastity, gluttony vs. temperance, greed vs. charity, sloth vs. diligence, wrath vs. patience, envy vs. kindness and pride vs. humility.
Towards the end of the Middle Ages, as the grip of religious fundamentalists loosened, the Reformation, the Renaissance and the Enlightenment opened Western minds. Philosophers used reason to distinguish between right and wrong, good and bad. What is right and wrong can be whatever the majority say it is at any given time either by democratic means or by unspoken consensus. Kant asserted that an action is ethical if it would be acceptable for everyone else to do it. The utilitarians asserted that the most moral course of action is one which leads to the maximum good for the maximum number of people. Causing harm on purpose is worse than causing harm by accident. Some argue that we have free will and are responsible for our actions, others that we are automatons acting out predetermined patterns of behaviour and therefore we are not responsible. Some say that morality is hardwired into human nature, that we know what is right and good. Any healthy person would know that it is wrong to torture and animal. Some say that morality is a pragmatic code which continuously evolves through negotiation and experiment.
Following the horrors and abuses of morality during imperialism, slavery, the First World War, the Second World War, the Holocaust and other smaller but no less evil abuses of power, we have rigorously deconstructed morality. We adopted the idea that morality is entirely subjective, and any assertions of right and wrong or good and bad impose subjective views on other people. We judged that it was best not to make judgments! It is not unusual to hear people declaring proudly that they are ‘non-judgemental.’ In its mild form, this way of thinking is a valid and scientific position to take – holding truth lightly with wisdom and an open mind. In its fundamentalist form, namely relativism, it has undermined our confidence to assert a truth, value, morality, identity, boundary or belief. This is bad. It means that good people fail to assert themselves, and lazy, corrupt, malicious and evil people triumph.
Science and materialism have undermined the foundations of our moral codes. We have lost confidence in our authority, and find it difficult to lead and organise ourselves without heavy regulation and bureaucracy. Our unwillingness to make judgements has allowed corruption, religious fascism, paedophilia, rape, honour killings and female genital mutilation to go unchallenged because we are desperate not to apply our cultural judgements to people from another culture. That is a recipe for disaster, and an open goal for those who wish to impose fascistic beliefs on us.
So, we must assert judgements wisely. It is a challenge, because we do not have a consensus on what constitutes right and wrong, good and bad. There are now so many moral approaches and so little faith in the traditional consensus that it is hard to put the jigsaw back together again. The good news is that we have the power of good science, philosophy, reason, logic, wisdom, intuition, intelligent debate and democracy at our disposal to help determine what is right and wrong, good and bad and it is extremely important that we do so. We must empower individuals to make wise judgements for which they are accountable. That is the foundation of civilization and freedom.
http://www.amazon.com/New-Magna-Carta-Psychiatrists-Prescription/dp/1506191673