The 4 differences between moral, immoral and amoral

Ethics and morality are two of the most important components of human life. Living in society makes us create norms about what is right and wrong, what is good and what is wrong. bad, to rule our own lives and try to make the people around us follow the same rules of play.

However, in this aspect it is easy to get confused with the concepts related to our way of understanding good and evil, since these are very abstract concepts. Therefore, below we will see what they consist of the differences between moral, amoral and immoral, interlinked 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 strongly implanted scale of ethical values ​​or a series of religious dogmas make almost all people in a community have a similar conception of what is good and what is bad, there is always exceptions. For example, when someone guides her life based on values ​​that are very different from those followed by the rest, it is easy to be branded as immoral or amoral indistinctly and, consequently, many times wrong.

To clarify this, it is good that at first we define what we understand by moral, immoral and amoral and then we 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 OK.

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

Now let's see 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 from this field, there is much discussion about whether The rules of morality are relative or universal (and this was discussed further in the past). That is, it is possible that moral rules and what constitutes a violation of the idea of ​​the good does not exist as a separate entity. of our expectations and social constructions in general, in the same way that money only exists because we have agreed.

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

• You may be interested: "Lawrence Kohlberg's Theory of Moral Development"

2. Morality and immorality depend on abstract thought

To create behavioral norms it is necessary to have the ability to think abstractly, that is, to think in concepts that group characteristics and properties that cannot be isolated in nature (the way 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 higher degree of abstraction, even in some climatic phenomena, landscapes, works of art, etc.

The amoral, on the other hand, exists regardless of whether there is a way of thinking based on the abstract and on semantics, because it is the option that occurs "by default" in nature. On a planet inhabited only by beings incapable of using language and creating norms of behavior, amorality.

3. Amorality is useless, the other two, yes

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

Morality and immorality do exist because they fulfill a function. Specifically, they act as a glue that binds society together, allowing networks of relationships to exist between individuals.

4. The moral is desirable, the immoral and the amoral, not

Morality is almost always built by more than one individual, and the same is true of immorality. 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 what is bad) are conceived as the undesirable, what must be avoided.

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5. The moral and the immoral define each other

Implicit in moral rules is what is immoral. For example, if according to a religion it is said that eating turkey meat with dairy products is prohibited, it is moral not to mix these foods, while it is immoral to do so.

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