For me, there is no universal moral value in this world. Moral value is based on people’s minds, which sometimes hold “unjustice” opinion. For instance, almost everywhere on the planet is advocating “gender equality”—it opens up opportunities for women, and gives the justices for all humankind. However, there is not really clear meaning for “gender equality”.  It just like a couple arguing and fighting in public if the male is attacking the female verbally or physically, people will think the man is doing the wrong things to the lady; however, people may have a really high chance to ignore the possibility of the lady does wrong things. In comparison, if the female is doing the same thing to the male in public, people most likely to think that the man might have done something wrong. Therefore, the reality is there is no real “equality” in human society. There is no “universal moral value” in human society.

The universal values ​​are the set of characteristics and norms of coexistence of the human being considered as positive and valid qualities in a given time. They are usually considered innate to human nature.Universal values ​​are studied in ethics, morals and philosophy. Specifically, the axiology devotes its study to values ​​and value judgments, as well as, human rights are also based on what is considered as universal values.

The concept of universal values ​​is broad and open to interpretations. Although they are values ​​that are given importance, each person usually prioritizes some of them according to their scale of values, especially when there are situations of conflict between several universal values.Therefore, it is considered that universal values ​​define the attitudes of individuals to live harmoniously between family, friends, co-workers and other people.

I don’t think there are universal moral values in the world. Everyone has different values. And humans are pack animals, and what most people think is right in the eyes of a few. A lot of times people are treated as different because they have different thoughts and behaviors.
Universal moral values represent the values that the so-called “ordinary people” believe in, such as giving up your seat if you see an old person on the bus, which is the universal moral values, and such as “if you have money, you must donate to the disadvantaged”, this moral value is not necessarily the same for all people.

So, a universal value would be something in which everyone in the world agrees with, for example, killing babies is wrong. In my opinion, there is nothing in what we humans can all agree with. This is because of different perspectives or situations. For example, if we say that killing babies no matter what is wrong, obviously the right choice for everyone would be to not harm any of these creatures. Yet, what if there is this baby that is going to die in a week, but he or she will be in extreme pain. What would be the correct answer? Lots of people would say that in this situation the best way would be to put the kid down. Basically, there are lots of values, and each culture has a different interpretations of them. There is no such thing as a universal moral value.

I believe that there are universal moral values. Even though we all come from different cultures and backgrounds there are some things that we all believe. For example, all humans believe that it is a nice thing to do to say hello when you see someone you know on the street or in the hallway at school. I believe that this is a universal moral value as even though we do not see it being done all the time in different countries we can trust that it happens. This is one example of a universal moral value, Kindness.

Another example that I feel is a universal moral value is that we treat all people the same. This doesn’t always happen for various reasons but at one point in time everyone has treated other people like equals. For example, if you saw someone on the streets begging for change, we do not know what he/she went through to get to where they are now. It is assumed to be morally correct to be nice to people who have it harder than us in life and are struggling to make ends meet. one would want others to do the same for us if we were in that situation.

These are just two examples of universal moral values, and I believe that there are many more.

I think that there is no universal moral value, but moral value exists in the world. The moral value is developed by a human being, people use it to judge what is right or wrong. But people in different life experience, stratum, culture, believes have different views in right and wrong. For example, in the part of India, eating or slaughter of cows is seriously prohibited because of Hinduism. However, in other parts of the world, eating cows’ meet is normal. In some Africa clans, eating human‘s died body is a normal thing to do, but it is totally unacceptable in our society. Therefore, moral value exists, but the moral value is not the same for every people.

I think that moral values still exist in the world, but it depends on the religion, culture or own thoughts. They also depends on your own beliefs because we are used to use them if they are convenient for us. For example in the past there was a moral value where all woman’s had to take care of the house and the men could work and do whatever they wanted to do. The moral values will always exist but there will always change because of the evolution. In conclusion nowadays no one cares about anything, just about themselves.

Moreover, personally I think that moral phrases have no truth values. Nothing in the physical universe tells us what makes an action a good action or a specific desirable brain state. So if something seems to as right or wrong is not because of the moral facts is just because most people think the same, that’s happen with murder, most people think that is not good murdering but that’s because human are created to think in a similar way, we have the same feelings and we react this way with this type of topics such as murder, I think this is more related with education than fact values.

Hence, the way you are educated, will be your values. Each person has there own values, but sometimes they are just similar for everyone or most people like it happen with murder. Is just a way of thinking. 

For me,  there are no universal moral values. In our real life, people think a certain thing is good or bad just based on their own perception and cognition of it. Like everyone has a different code of ethics, this means that people cannot reach a unified moral value in this world. Aside from all the mathematical theories and the scientific theories, there is not even a moral standard in the world.

I don’t think we have universal moral values because of different cultures and everyone has a different personality.  I think the universal moral values vary greatly depending on the environment in which they were born and raised. For example, if you grow up in a wealthy family, you will think that theft is bad, but if you grow up in a poor, you will think that theft is inevitable to live.

Based on all the handouts and discussions in class I’ve reached to conclusion in relation to this values. This is that I don’t believe that there are such things as universal moral values. Although I do think that there are universal ideas behind those values. Universal ideas like respect, loyalty, fairness, etc. This have changed throughout history shaping the values that seem correct in different moments time.

In a similar debate, I do not believe that it should be called a fact. This is because as I mentioned earlier this moral values have changed throughout time. And for it to be true it would to be true in any moment no matter what.

I am going to define “universal moral values” as a value every person has and would like to see in the world and using that definition I am stating that there are no moral value. First, each situation can mean something completely different from person to person, and even if it seems like the same, it is not possible for them to be exactly the same because each of the events in their life affect and shape a person. Even if the only difference is having a glass of water and someone not, it will further affect them and then change how they act and think (the person who didn’t have the glass of water is now going to be focusing more on having a glass of water sooner than the other person and so their mind will go off, they will be thirsty and you can see that even the most smallest detail can lead to two completely different outcomes). There was tribe (I’m sorry Mr. Macknight I can not remember the name) that said it was not allowed to murder any human being, that so far sounds like what is a “moral value” (value of life), but then when you look what the definition of human is for them, you see that human being is someone from their tribe and so it would be fine to murder someone who was from somewhere else. Also, universal is meaning that it is the same for everyone and as we can see throughout history, with people like Hitler, Vladimir Lenin, and Muhammad that it is not true. There is always going to be someone who does agree with one thing and there will also be someone who agrees the opposite of that. An example would be that everyone deserves the right to food and water, but, that is not the case because people are dying from starvation and dehydration everyday. We like to think that we believe that is a right that everyone should have food and water, but for most people, we don’t have enough knowledge or the experience of being starving. We subconsciously do not care about that “universal moral value” because we spend a lot of money on other things that we don’t use and need and we don’t make or give any effort to help the people in need. Why should countries spend billions of dollars in war and weapons when they can just kill millions of people without doing anything (letting people die from lack of resources). Imagine you were walking down a street in downtown Victoria and there would be a bunch of homeless people by the area you were walking. For some people having that would not be anything, but for others, we clench up and get very nervous and you feel more alert. Have you noticed that if you were with your mother she would hold you hand or say something to you quietly like come on (as in hurry) or don’t look at them, that is because she feels fear and that they are more likely to do something bad to you. We like to think that we see everyone as equal, but when we see someone who is homeless, we think, oh I don’t want to be like him, and they are scary. We say all these things without even knowing anything about what happened to them. From these points, my statement is confirmed and I can confirm that we have no universal moral values, but, why do we have a lot of similarities in the basis of all our moral values? In my opinion, I believe that it is because we all grow up as a community and as a society and now especially with the internet and social media, we get to know from multiple aspects. As we develop and our brains and minds do, each new piece of information influences us without us even knowing. I think that is also why the values of the older generation are different from the new one because the way we have grown up was with technology and the other generation not as much.

I do think there are universal values because moral values ​​respond to impulses, tendencies and aspirations of the human being, so they are very necessary for the formation of the human being as a person. They are all those questions that lead man to defend and grow in his dignity as a person, because unfailingly, moral value will lead man to moral good, which, as we know, is what perfects, completes and improves it.

These ​​will always perfect man as a man, good deeds, such as being living honestly, telling the truth and acting always thinking about others, can never contradict the path to perfection.
Meanwhile, the choice for moral values ​​is an absolutely free and not imposed decision that each person  has, that is, he will decide whether to opt for them or not, but without a doubt, the fact of choosing them will have the direct effect of doing so more humane and give you extra quality as a person.

Moral values like respect, tolerance, honesty, work, loyalty and responsibility, among others, will arise and will be instilled in each person, primarily, within the family, for which relations with the father, mother, brothers, grandparents, uncles and all those others involved in the family, must have the right quality, to be these correct transmitters of all those values that we mentioned above. On the other hand and in addition to the quality of the relationships, turns out to be indispensable to achieve an ideal transmission of certain values, the model and the example that these relatives teach and show the child, because this will absorb everything that they instill in him and also what he observes of these, his attitudes, modes, among others.

But if there are universal moral values, then why do people argue and disagree so much about what is good and what is bad? Well these depends on the people who teaches us these moral values, as I mentioned before, if your parents let you steal something from a store then you will grow up thinking it is normal to steal, but if your parents punish you when you take something from a store and teach you why it is wrong then you will learn your moral values.

I do not think there are universal moral values, humans have decided through history what is wrong or right but I do not think it is the same for everybody, long ago it was okay to kill different people for reasons that right now it is not okay to do, also as today it is still something that not everybody agrees on. Most of us think that killing is wrong but the same authorities that made us think that also kill criminals on death penalty. i do not think universal moral values exist because I think it is very hard to get an idea that absolutely everybody agrees on and everybody follows it.

I do not think that “fact” is a right word to apply in this context because a fact is something that is, by science, proven right and it is not only that people think is right. I do think it is an opinion and that most people agree that killing is wrong but I think that there will always be an exception.

I don’t think there is a universal moral values. A moral value, according to the dictionary, is the instrumental value of responsibility reveals itself as the significance of existence of responsibility. There may be a moral value for someone in some places, but there are no universal moral values. Different people on different country lived under different culture has there own moral values. Maybe something for you is right but it might be totally wrong for another.

We all have moral values but saying some values can apply to the whole universe would be wrong. Moral values are always changing during the time, as an example a century ago it was alright to kill a person who committed a crime as he is counted as a brutal person with no right to live, nowadays it would consider as inhumane and that everything and everyone deserves a chance to live. Everyone would agree that murder is bad, (first of all, because you can end up in jail), but in another case, we think that soldiers who participate in war and were killing people are heroes. There is no particular answer to this question (as always in TOK), but my opinion would be that there are moral values that the majority of people follow ( don’t steal, don’t kill, etc. ), but we can’t call them universal as it doesn’t apply to everyone on this planet. Moral values always change and it only up to people if they follow it, or create their values.

In this world there are a moral value called universal moral values, it surpass nationality, country, and belief, it’s a value that all the human have and it is baseline of human morality. In my opinion there are three different point in universal moral values, which is fair, justice and freedom. Fair shows that when people are restricted by the laws everybody are same so nobody are unfair except crime. In some easy word justice means when you doing something good you will get a good retribution, however when you doing something bad you will get a bad report.

Above all i think there is a universal moral value which is fair justice and freedom.

The dispute whether universal moral values are real or not has been around for years and it was generally decided that there are no universal moral values. However, most people would agree on certain subjects such as murder. Everyone knows that murder is bad, however most people do not think that murdering animals is bad. So where do we draw the line between what is ethically correct? and why is killing animals still considered ethically correct? There are still so many things we have not considered in this dispute.

I believe that universal moral values do not exist. Universal moral values can simply be put to this: a line is implanted within our minds the moment we gain consciousness, that line is equal for everyone at any time and it restricts us from doing what is beyond that line, what is ‘immoral’. That line does not exist. We do create lines in our heads, however, it is not implanted by some higher being or the universe, it is built by ourselves, each and every one of us builds our own line. We base the line from our time, our society, our conditioning. What we are conditioned to believe is wrong tend to be built into the line easily, one example of this is the action we define as murder. However, if we are conditioned in another way, we might not believe the action that is defined by murder is wrong. For example, Hitler murdered tens of thousands of Jewish people during his ethnic cleansing in Europe, but that action is exactly what we would define as murder. You may argue that Hitler did not consider the Jews as human and that in his interpretation that action is not a murder, therefore ‘One shall not murder’ stands as a universal moral value. But everyone has a different interpretation of everything and considering that: If we cannot even agree on our interpretations of what murder is, how can we decide whether it is good or bad?

Do I think there are universal moral values? Yes I do. Everyone around the world has some concept of the same moral values but some have different takes on it and some choose not to follow it. For example ‘don’t murder people’ is a big one, however some cultures think it is ok if they don’t have the same beliefs and values because the makes them less human. There are also the few people who kill because they choose to, these people however usually get penalized for doing so. Another wildly known one is ‘respect your parents’ unfortunately this one gets broken a lot because it has become “cool” not to. eventually most people do grow out of that phase and go back to following it.

In regards to wether it is a fact or not, I think it is, but not like a mathematical fact. There are a lot more factors that play a role in psychology.

I do not think that there are universal moral values because I don’t think there are any situations where everyone agrees about what is good and what is bad. I think that this is because of how everyone has different cultures and religions with different points of view on the things that are good and bad. One example is that if there was a person who killed many other people would it be ok to kill them or not. This example is one where I definitely think that there is no universal morals to this because everyone has their own opinions and beliefs.

i stand by what i said in class about the question ; “are their universal moral values?” with my opinion that there is no answer. No matter what someone says their will always be a different opinion and never a right answer towards things that are not facts. Even then, some people beg to differ that facts ARE opinions. So this has no answer.

In my opinion, there are no moral values in this world, nothing is right or wrong. Therefore, no moral judgments are true. However, it depends on the group we are in, whether country, culture and religion. In conclusion, as human beings that we are, we must be able to establish universal moral values ​​based on the human rights of the country or religion to which we belong. Good and evil for a rational being will always exist.

In my opinion, there is no universal moral value. There are a lot of religions and cultures in this world and each person has different definition of bad and good things. For example, it is bad to eat pork for Islam people, but for every religious does not think it a bad thing. The example which talked in the class was killing people. I think everyone will say that killing people is a bad things. Then what happen to the death penalty which is usually use as subject of discussion. If killing the people is a bad thing, the death penalty should be stop. However, there are a lot of countries which has death penalty even though they says killing people will cause penalty.

I think there is no universal moral value because each country, each religion, and each school has its own definition of things. We can’t make an exact border between a good thing and a bad thing, in other words, one thing must do evil or come into conflict when you have to choose one thing from two good. I will take one example from “The Argument For Universal Moral Values a.k.a Moral Facts”, The life of a mother vs. The life of an unborn foetus. Both lives have to alive in every situation; however, you might have to give up and kill either one life if you in a worse situation. We are not able to classify it as good or bad because it depends on the situation and explanation. And if it is published, people around the world blame pregnant a woman or doctor based on the personal definition. The personal definition is affected by religion, education, environment and culture. Thus, I am assuming that there isn’t even one bad thing everyone will agree to.

I think that there are universal moral values, because everybody has a sense of knowing what is right and what is wrong. Different cultures or different people may think different things are right and wrong, but they still think some things are right and some wrong. we argue and disagree so much about what is good and bad because for some things, there are blurry lines. If one person murders another person, they will go to jail, and they possibly could be executed by the state. this is murder, but some people do not think it is bad because the person murdered somebody and the state is just serving justice. The word fact can be applied to ethics, because some things are just a fact, like “murder is wrong”, and everybody knows it is wrong.

In 1846 the United States invaded Mexico. At the same time, the controversy over slavery, which would finally boil over in 1861 with the start of the Civil War, was already intense. Out of this moment came, among other things, Henry David Thoreau’s essay, “On Civil Disobedience,” which would inspire both Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Thoreau quotes “Paley, a common authority with many on moral questions,” who

resolves all civil obligation into expediency; and he proceeds to say that “so long as the interest of the whole society requires it, that is, so long as the established government cannot be resisted or changed without public inconveniency, it is the will of God. . .that the established government be obeyed . . . .”

Thoreau objects to this mode of ethical reasoning in vivid terms:

But Paley appears never to have contemplated those cases to which the rule of expediency does not apply, in which a people, as well as an individual, must do justice, cost what it may. If I have unjustly wrested a plank from a drowning man, I must restore it to him though I drown myself. This, according to Paley, would be inconvenient. But he that would save his life, in such a case, shall lose it. This people must cease to hold slaves, and to make war on Mexico, though it cost them their existence as a people.

Personally, I define the thing that creates the maximum benefit for the greatest people is the right thing, and it has a fancy name call utilitarianism. The reason that I think utilitarianism is right because it helps me to decide one thing that worth to do or not. And the world decision-maker are using utilitarianism to make a decision, because they are trying to make the most benefit for the nation.

For me, I like the Golden Rule best, because I think treating other people as I wish to be treated myself is beneficial for both sides, even every people. Like if each of us can empathize and treat others as we would ourselves, the society we live in will be more harmonious and beautiful. This moral (law of reciprocity) in various forms has been used as a basis for society in many cultures and civilizations, because there is value in having this kind of respect and caring attitude for one another. When I live in the Golden rule, I will gain many long-lasting friends and have love and compassion to feel like I am changing the world for the better.

How do you know that something is good or bad, right or wrong?

For me, I always use the virtue approach as well as the fairness or justice approach to determine whether this things or this behavior is right or wrong.  To be more specific, I always think about “does the action help or harm the individual’s character, or soul or does this act transmit true energy?” In the real life situation, when I was in primary school, one of my classmates always stole my stationery. As we can see, this is a really tiny thing, but it can become so big.  Like this kind of behavior has seriously violated morality and justice, ( He acquired something that did not belong to him by improper behavior) so that I know this is bad and wrong.

The Ethics term that I agree with to the greatest extent is consequentialism. I like that there is not some ultimate rule for everything and that the outcome is based upon each different situation. It can be very good because it can give people security to try and do things that would be of greater benefit and not have to worry about the small details surrounding if the thing that they did was “bad” (saved someones life but broke their leg in the process), but it can also be unclear as there is a lot of grey space in the areas between the actions and their situations. Someone could do the right thing, but then how they did it was more than what was needed, or someone could have been doing something bad, but then it ended up being fine because of the situation (they were not meaning to do the good thing it turned out to be). If someone was riding their bike and they were going to hit a person walking on the side and someone pushed the biker over instead of the person out of the way, the biker would be in much more pain than if the person was pushed out of the way. It is fine because it stopped the biker from running over the person but there was a better and less pain inflicting way to do it. For the other reason I don’t agree with it, if someone robbed a store (shop lifted) and someone outside the store mugged them, without knowing they shop lifted, and someone saw that happen or the people of the store were there, the mugger could say that he saw the person stealing and was trying to get the items that the person took back.

When I would read the other examples of the terms of ethics, I would aways agree with some aspects of it, and if not agree, at least understand where they are coming from, but with consequentialism, I found that for most scenarios, as long as there was a set of rules and a moral judgement of the actions, that a society would be able to run well under the ethical mindset of consequentialism.