One of my favorite subjects to discuss has to be 'Morality'. Often I am asked where my sense of morality comes from. Religious people tell me their morality comes from God and it has certain characteristics, like "morality is objective and absolute". Which is problematic, because I don't see this in society and in scripture. Not, only that, it poses some logical contradictions. What I do see, supports my believe that "morality is subjective and disputable". If that is true, where does morality come from? 

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Let's start at the beginning. What is morality? There are several definitions, but I favor this one:

"a particular system of values and principles of conduct.". Other definitions refer to determine things "are good or bad", which goes against my belief that good and bad as inherent things do not exist. We perceive things as Good or Bad, that doesn't mean they are. When this is true, how do we determine what is to be perceived as Good or Bad? 

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The question I often get is 'What objective standard do I base my morality on?' Well, even with subjective morality there is one objective standard to use. Biology. We can determine, based on our understanding of biology, what physically, mentally or emotionally hurts or benefits a being in their functionality. If you pull the wings of a fly (please don't, it's a hypothetical situation) you can objectively verify that the fly is less able or even unable to survive. Thus, the fly is harmed. 

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You can apply your understanding of biology to yourself aswell. There are several things you need, in order to be able to survive. You can narrow these down to 'Food, Shelter, Safety and the means to procreate'. This is a sense of self-preservation, but I just call it Egotism. You know what hurts or benefits you and your changes of survival. Based on this you determine what is good or bad for you. But, not only that. You can reflect this on others aswell. You know what others need to survive or what hurts their survival.

But why should you care? Well, there are several reason to have Empathy for others. It's a basic need for you to have others who are close to you survive. You need them to help you survive when in need, or to help you just to make things easier. This also leads to 'reciprocity', where you help someone now, knowing they will help you later. This is something which is studied in 'social animals' like Elephants and Monkeys. 

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To secure Food, Safety, Shelter and the means to procreate, it ofcourse is easiest to live in a herd, pack, pride or tribe. And this is what social animals, like humans, do. They live together in a Society in order to make their survival easier. But to do this with no problems, there not only needs to be a hierarchy, there also needs to be a common sense of what benefits the individual and the group in their survival. 

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Each individual bases their sense of morality on biology, egotism, empathy and their sense of society. This is their 'individual subjective morality'. In order to make their society work as good as possible, they have to agree upon what is good for the individual and the group. This agreement is their 'collective subjective morality'. 

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Subjective morality can be subjected to a paradigm shift. You can have a revelation and change your view what you thought was good and now see it as bad. To prevent unfair treatment, due to a paradigm shift, you would want to make fixed rules, based on the current collective subjective morality. This 'objective moral code' would be the law. Basically laws are fixed. A law regarding the speeding limit takes effect at a certain date. From that day, you can objectively compare if someone has violated that speeding limit. And even when they have, there could be "mitigating circumstances" to recon with, that would allow the person not to be punished for this violation.

In addition to this, should at a certain point the subjective consensus be, that the speeding limit is to high, you can change this law. The change will take effect at a certain date. Eventhough the objective moral code is fixed, there are processes to change this, like through referendum or electing new government officials. 

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We see this in our systems of government, where we elect lawmakers, based on our personal subjective morality. You elect a person, who has moral values closest to your own. If they get most votes, they are elected and make laws you agree with the most. This is how the democratic system should work. But ofcourse it doesn't because compromises must be made, due to the fact that not everyone has the same individual moral values. 

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Referendum: "a vote in which all the people in a country or an area are asked to give their opinion about or decide an important political or social question". A good example of how a referendum changes an objective moral code is the Irish referendum on "Blasphemy" in 2018, where through a majority vote, blasphemy was de-criminalized.