Is morality objective, subjective, or something else entirely?

Is morality objective, subjective, or something else entirely?

Morality isn’t fully objective like math, and it’s not purely subjective like taste. It’s contextually objective, constrained by biology, tested by reciprocity, and proven over time by results.

Under Natural Law, morality is the system of rules that make cooperation without parasitism possible. It’s what allows groups to survive, thrive, and build civilization without turning on each other.

Moral truth is not whatever a person feels, and it’s not whatever a culture invents. It’s discoverable through testing: Does this rule lead to flourishing or decay? Does it preserve sovereignty and reciprocity, or does it exploit and collapse?

Moral rules can be good, better, or best. A rule may be moral in the sense that it prevents harm or conflict, but still be far from optimal. Much of human history is the story of discovering better moral systems: rules that produce more peace, more cooperation, more sovereignty, and more prosperity.

And when we go backward, when societies adopt rules that violate Natural Law, we see decay. Trust breaks. Institutions fail. Families fracture. Even if those rules are “popular” or “progressive,” they rot the foundation.

So while some variation exists by time, place, and group structture, there is a hierarchy. Moral rules must at minimum be good, but we should always be seeking better ones. The test is simple: do they preserve agency, uphold truth, maintain reciprocity, and produce durable order?

That’s how you know it’s moral. Not because someone said so. But because it works, under pressure, over time, across groups.

Any system of morality that leads to your people going extinct is, by definition, immoral. Just as any moral system that does not allow your people to flourish is immoral.